Tuesday 18th November
I found the motivation to play more poker so I fired up a £330 satellite on DTD(ipoker network).There were 5 x £3000 WPT seats up for grabs and £600 for 6th. I was getting a lot of heat from a well known regular who I later found out was Andrew Hulme. Almost every time I opened he 3B me. I had to fold all my marginal openings but was fortunate enough to have a few value hands vs him. I think i folded 3 x 2BB opens maybe 4 and 4B jammed x 4 over his 6-9BB 3B's. I think without these mistakes he made it would have been close for me to get a seat. I think most of the field played far too aggressive with marginal and inferior hands.
I was really happy when I won the seat. I rung a good friend who alerted me to the fact that Day 1B was in a few hours time. Yep you guessed it, only me who can play a £330 satellite for a £3000 WPT seat 16 hours before that event starts it's last day 1 and not even know! I didn't sleep much due to thinking about the event and having way too much sleep the night before. Here is a V-Log I made the next day whilst travelling to the event. Looking surprisingly fresh on 45 minutes sleep!
After arriving 45 minutes late I got my stack put in play. An intact 30,000 starting stack :) Today we play 10 x 1 hour levels if we don't go broke!
No interesting hands the first 2 levels for me. Had Devilfish on the 1st table. He managed to bluff off 1/3 of his stack by cold 5 betting his BB then B/F a 9h7h2c flop vs UTG+2 open, MP 3B, BTTN 4B. Only him and BTTN take the flop and Dave folded pretty quickly to the BTTN's minclick after Dave C-Bet the flop for half pot. I'd say he had AK, TT, JJ and some random air. Pretty disgusting way to play poker if you ask me. I think alot of the table were laughing inside. I got moved to a tough table after. I had position on Fedor Holz/CrownUpGuy and another player who was meant to be an online sicko. To my left i had 2 prolific peelers so this table felt like my hands were tied. Such a horrible draw.
1st break 29,100
Later I managed to cooler Fedor. Folded around to him he opens@100/200 to 400 from the BTTN. I have AQ in the BB and 3B to 1000 when it's folded to me. He calls and I fire 1500 on Ad-2d-Ac. He calls so I fire again 3000 into 5k pot on the Jh turn. He calls, so my plan for a brick river was to check and let him bluff if he had a missed draw. Sure if he has KJ/TT he is just going to CIB but i feel most of his range here would be diamonds and a smaller part AX. The river completed a Ad-2d-Ac-Jh-7s board. I check and he bet 5600 pretty quickly with only 13,000 behind(I cover). I go into the tank and debate check raising all in for max value but couldn't pull the trigger. If he floated with Js or had A2/AJ/A7 i'd feel like a plank plus it is safer to just call and gain intel at showdown. I still need to research this spot and ask what MTT beasts do here!
2nd break 41,475
3rd break 38,600
Got into a really ugly spot with OOP v UTG+1 i 3B my SB with QQ. Board came Ad-Kd-5c-4h-3c. Bet call flop, check check turn and check bet river. I'm tanking for maybe 2 minutes thinking is this guy bluffing here as the board ran out 4 card straight board. Sure we can value bet this spot all day here with an Ace but he was old and i was trying to figure out of he was capable of V-Betting this spot. I think Fedor's friend tried to tilt me by calling the clock. He said sorry after but I just think he was trying to induce some negative play from me. It didn't work anyway. I waited for the floor to count me down with my chips in my hand contemplaiting the call. The killed my hand then the old guy said "you was never going to call". As soon as he said this i knew i had made the correct decision. I was sure before but this just reinforced it further.
Dropped down to 28,600 few hours after, my lowest point of the tournament.
I got revenge on the guy who called the clock, i picked up a really good spot to squeeze and even made a hand vs the prolific peeler. After my stack was. 39,600
I think they both tilted in the end. Fedor was unlucky vs me earlier with the AT v AQ on A2AJ7 but there were 2 other spots I felt he V-Bet way too thin and got burned for it. I think that's what happens when you don't make the correct adjustments from online to live.
Last break 34,400
Got up to 43,300 but lost a few pots and didn't get max value from 1 value hand. Ended up bagging 41,500/41.5BB at the end of Day 1.
Thursday 20th November, Day 2 WPT Nottingham £3000 Main Event
I arrived 15-20 minutes late. The structure was 90 minute levels today. Amazing stuff! My table draw was really bad, I got a table full of nits. Seemed like only Tamer Kamel(seat 6), Mike Sexton(seat 5), Fraser Maclntyre(seat 7) and myself(seat 8) wanted to play pots. Only good thing was I had position on them all.
I think the 4th hand I got into a spot vs Tamer who open called his UTG+1 when I 3B a value hand. He check called my C-bet on J85r, turn brought a 4s for a 2nd spade. he checked so I jammed 1.5 pot and he tank folded. Said he had AJ whilst tanking. 54,200/52.2BB
1st break 47,700
A very short 15BB Gaelle Baumann got moved onto our table. I think she is a decent player. I remember her HU match v Liv Boeree in the 2013 NBC 1st Round. Liv played terrible and got picked off! I hope it's Miss Baumann not Mrs, as I think she is a really good looking woman. Unfortunately my viewing pleasure only lasted 2 orbits, Gaelle busted. We got Tom Middleton in replace of her with 90BB. Great!
Bust out hand 35BB effective stack.
I open TsTd UTG+1 2BB, all fold to Mike Sexton in the SB who completes. Tamer Kamel comes along for the ride in his BB.
Flop: Th-Jc-9s
Both check to me. I bet 2.5BB into 7BB, Mike raises to 11.5BB pretty quickly and Tamer folds. At this point I'm going into the tank deciding how I'm going to play the hand. I decide no way has Mike got a straight here. I think he just flats a ton more than he raises as he risks losing 2 customers if he decides the latter. I think his range here is: JQ/T9/J9/JT/99 maybe QT? But definatley the 5 other hands. With his range constructed in my mind, i decide to click it back to 20.5BB and with the speed he shipped it in i knew i had him. We snap him off for a monster pot. He tables Jd9d and we table out TsTd...... as you can see in the picture, Jc-Ah runnout sends me to the rail.
Pretty much a 75BB pot takes me right onto the last few tables barring coolers. I was OK about it at the time but really upset the following day. I played my best and didn't make any mistakes, that's all you can do.
GG WPT Nottingham
During the event i had been chatting with Sofia Lovgren and her boyfriend Luca Moschitta during a few of the day 1 and day 2 breaks. Not sure they knew many people to talk to and I only knew a few people in the field. After i had busted i played cash, but told them I'd come back to rail Luca if he went deeper in the event. I thought i was known for being a beast on the short stack, Luca did incredible! I think he was a short stack most of the tournament then grew his stack in the last stages of the tournament. Incredible run with no chips for sure!
Luca finishes 7th
Luca just missed out on the TV table after losing a big pot, then losing a flip 5s v AQ aipf. UL mate, GG.
I resorted to stacking £1/£2 chips nice and neat to keep me occupied.
Grabbed some last minute pictures for the fans. Luca had just sorted out a bank wire at the cage for his£32,000 7th place finish.
I think i made some joke here that made us all laugh. Luca was obviously feeling bad inside for not going deeper. I was just trying my best to cheer him up :)
I think these guys are good for poker. Young, good looking, smart and humble. This is what's needed to introduce more players into the game.
Nice to meet you guys, see you in some other event no doubt. Maybe the PCA :)
November as a whole was really swingy. I managed to make money and play my A-game through-out the month so this was really good. I played my first £3000 EPT Main Event for minimum damage £330. Had a nice experience (apart from being 2outtered by Mike Sexton) and become hungry for poker success again.
The last few days of the month I have been really ill. I even played £2/£5 cash game on Saturday night feeling pretty ill. I managed to win in the game but there were not many great spots. This blog has been saved as a draft more times as I just couldn't concentrate on writing.
Anyway, looks like i'll be grinding £1/£2 in the city throughout December, unless I bink an EPT Prague seat!
GL at the tables
Mat/PartyScout
