The return from Cardiff

As i said in my last post i went to watch one of the heats at the William Hill GP, this is labelled as the best 'TV Tournament' it has a proper structure and the heats last a decent amount of time (similar to the old LNP series) obviously this costs a lot more to make with extra studio time but the finished product is much better. Will Hill also go to the trouble of adding a shed load of money to the event, and best yet looking after their guests! They put us up in the Cardiff Hilton and arranged travel between the Hilton and the Studio, they also had a tab at the Hilton so it was free drinks all night. Kudos to Hills and especially to Phil Quayle, the man knows what he is doing!

I can't tell you anything about the heat, you will have to wait till it's on telly, what i can tell you is that it was excellent viewing! In fact i think it will be the first heat shown a 'grand opening'

Back to poker closer to home, i came back from Cardiff and started playing again on Monday, no real joy, this was followed by an equally unspectacular Tuesday. Although now that full tilt have changed the Cap games to 40BB caps and the game has dried up i have reverted back to the HU SNG's i only played 7 but won 6-1. Thankfully last night (Wednesday) was a bit better! I had a small result in the afternoon $3500 $20 rebuy on Tribeca which set me up for good runs in both the 20 and 15k. The 20k i ended up coming 4th, a complete loon knocked me out when he called my re-raise all in with J8....how do these people get that far?!? I also built a stack in the 15k but came 19th when i ran JJ into the table numpty who happened to have AA!

The $20k is finally starting to pay though, the last 7 attempts have netted a 2nd a 3rd and a 4th. Anyway i am going to get stuck into some HU SNG's before the evening's comps (although i will probably watch Jericho first, if you haven't seen it yet download it! Its a very captivating programme about an American small town in the wake of a nuclear war!)

I also wanted to say if anyone reading this blog has a poker blog of their and they wish to 'trade links' then please leave me a comment.

William Hill GP

Thursday was a bit of a blank for me, i had a couple of finals but they were minor placings and i ended up a few hundred. Friday was a better day i was up early so played all 3 of the $20 rebuys on tribeca. I managed a 2nd in the $3k for about $750 and a 2nd in the $5k for $1400! I then went on to claim 3rd in the $20k for another $2500 :D

It's very aleary Saturday morning, 10am, well for me anyway! I am off out the door to watch the Will Hill GP in Cardiff as a guest of William Hill/Phil Quayle. The heat i am watching has Tony G, Devilfish and Brian Wilson in it so it should be very entertaining!!

Thats all for now, gl.

Monday-Wednesday

I haven't posted my results for the last 3 days, so will just say things have been running super hot.

I gave the betfair £15k another go on Monday and found myself the winner and proud new owner of £4100. The next night i found myself the runner up in the $20k on tribeca, $4100 that time. Last night (wednesday) i made 3 finals but came 6th 6th 4th so only a small result in the end, especially after 9 rebuys in the $15k!

I have decided to see if i can buy a BAPT package, i am currently talking with 2 people who are selling so i will see how things go, i really want to go but i am not going to pay over the odds for it.

Hopefully i will have good news to report tomorrow :D

The Grosvenor Grand Prix

Off to Walsall for a weekend of glamour, well maybe not, it was for the grosvenor grand prix. Still with a £303,200 prize pool, £100k for first and 240 runners it's a damn fine tournament.

I sat down at table 12 seat 2, seat 1 was Lawrence Gosney and seat 9 was a very strong young player, Ben Turnstill(some might know him as RookieITB) such is the nature of a PL comp with a 200BB starting stack the first level is just pointless, nothing happens. Well thats what is supposed to happen but how wrong i was, Ben managed to get knocked out in truly shocking fashion. He got 80% of his stack in on the turn when the board read T732, his oppo had AA and when an Ace dropped on the end that was the end of his tournament.

After the first break we came back to the comp at 100-200 (the real start of the tournament) soon after i found AK on a stack of 8400. I made it 600 to go in EP and got it around to the BB who flat called. The flop came KKT, in went the money, i cover the BB by 800. He shows KJ, turn 3 river J.

Now with just 800 left i raise pot from UTG the next hand with K8 and manage a treble up! Soon after the table breaks and i find myself sharing a table with 'Red-Dog' this table was far more enjoyable for me, i play live poker for fun and my starting table would make a funeral look more enjoyable. I stayed around for a bit, got a double up back to 4800. Then on 300-600 found A9d pumped in a pot raise, got around to the BB again, he had 5200 total and put the lot in, i can't pass now, on their backs. He has 55, KK372 board dispatches me to the rail (he went on to final!)

No complaints i can't have played any better and at the end of the day it only cost me the expense of the hotel. Speaking of which about 3am myself Barry Neville and Colchester Kev sat around my lappy in the lobby and played the $5000 g'td tournament on tribeca (well i played they watched) some time around 5:30 it was over and despite a couple of outdraws HU i was happy to take 2nd for $1400. Not such a bad day afterall!

I went back on the Sunday to watch some of day 2, 110 players came back with the average at 20k, blinds of 800-1600. Someone really needs to look at ways of adjusting this structure, its the biggest PL comp in Europe and is nothing more than a crapshoot.

A classic comment on Day 2 though, Paul Parker gets his opponent all in pre flop with AA, his oppo shows AT. Paul comments "how are you going to get out of this one then?" the flop swiftly gets dealt out.....KQJ.

It was an enjoyable weekend and congratulations to "ImMrAlex2u" one of the 'Jersey boys' and a tribeca regular who managed to lock up £10k in a deal coming 13th, also to Tony from Brighton who was in the chop 4 handed and he took £40,000!

Full Tilt what have you done!

Just a quick post today, I had a run in the $20k last night but fizzled out around 20th for a small return (about $215) I then retreated to my 3-6 Tilt game but again felt the other side of variance, at least I wasn't playing like a donkey this time!

Today I fired up the PC and went to full tilt, it was down so I decided to play the $20 rebuy on blue square instead. After a truly shocking call with JJ 6 handed when the 2nd and 3rd CL's had put their stacks in I was left with 45k on 5k-10k with 722k in play. Well I managed to take out the other shortstack with KJ vs KT then, found myself 3 handed and bullied my way to the CL! God knows how, they just let me. Then with the CL I pushed in with 66 on the button, the SB who had only 80k folded and the BB who just had to fold to come 2nd called with AQ, he missed and I was headsup with a lead I couldn't really lose! So I took it down for $2100+

I then wandered over to full tilt to have a crack at the 3-6 Cap game, they have removed it!!!! The cap games are gone! Throw into that I forgot the Betfair sat, well that's not true I remembered it at 7:35 when it started at 7:30......

I have decided to play the £15k on Betfair seeing asIi have the cash there andIi will play the tribeca 20k+15k.

Good luck to you all.

Harbour Lights festival £100 Rebuy

So i rolled up and was met with a larger field than i expected, 72. This was going to lead to a rather tasty prizepool, happy days!! The format was a limited rebuy tournament, you can have 1 rebuy and 1 addon, but not 2 rebuys 0 addon! (strange but true)


I started off slow but before long managed to bluff of my first set of chips, apart from 1k, so i took the rebuy which got me 4k. I then had to play tight and wait for the end of level 3 so i could buy my extra 3k. During this process i was sat in the SB with JJ on the 75-150 level, the hijack made it 600 to go and the button flat called the 600. This was a good spot to put the squeeze on, even though i had a hand, so i re-rased 2k more leaving 1400 back. The original raiser passed (thats what usually happens) then next guy then thought for a while, and eventually passed AK Mikface up! My reputation clearly does not spread too far!


That however was about it for me in this comp, i got to the last 20 with 24,000 never having found a hand (luckily this is England and people dont know how to play poker, only cards, so i could steal enough to keep my stack growing) the blinds rose to 1k-2k with the average stack at 22k. I then ran A5 into AT then A5 into TT in consecutive hands. There is not a lot you can do in a top heavy payout structure when the average stack is so short, you have to look to build a lead so you can take a hit.

I came back and ventured into the world of the Full Tilt PLO with a view to winning back my £300, thats not exactly how it went. For the first time on there i had a proper losing session, -$750, it was a combination of bad beats and bad moves, combined with one guy, EngineOfProfit, who owned me! Every pot we got in he would pass to my value bets and raise my bluffs, he also took it upon himself to win all the small uncontested pots....my source of income! One funny bluff that went wrong was this one....




Seat 1: ChesterBadAss ($471)
Seat 2: bigbadshark7 ($405)
Seat 3: The Norse Horse ($564.80)
Seat 4: Man of Pride ($557.30)
Seat 5: The Jolly Giant ($754.75)
Seat 6: EngineofProfit ($1,186.65)
ChesterBadAss posts the small blind of $3
bigbadshark7 posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The Norse Horse []
The Norse Horse calls $6
Man of Pride raises to $27
The Jolly Giant calls $27
EngineofProfit folds
ChesterBadAss folds
bigbadshark7 calls $21
The Norse Horse calls $21
*** FLOP *** []
bigbadshark7 checks
The Norse Horse checks
Man of Pride checks
The Jolly Giant checks
*** TURN *** [] []
bigbadshark7 checks
The Norse Horse bets $60
Man of Pride folds
The Jolly Giant calls $60
bigbadshark7 folds
*** RIVER *** [] []
The Norse Horse bets $93, and is capped
The Jolly Giant: I'm so on tilt right now
The Jolly Giant: I'm going to call you with these rags
The Jolly Giant calls $93, and is capped
*** SHOW DOWN ***
The Norse Horse shows [] (two pair, Queens and Threes)
The Jolly Giant shows [] (a flush, Ten high)
The Jolly Giant wins the pot ($414) with a flush, Ten high

Not the words you want to see typed when you are on the bare ace play!

I did still manage to get paid off in one amusing pot, another case of the morons value raising with hands that you cant value raise with!!!



Seat 1: ChesterBadAss ($0), is sitting out
Seat 2: bigbadshark7 ($542.10)
Seat 3: The Norse Horse ($512.60)
Seat 4: Man of Pride ($512.30)
Seat 5: wr9966 ($427.60)
Seat 6: EngineofProfit ($1,363.65)
The Norse Horse posts the small blind of $3
Man of Pride posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The Norse Horse []
wr9966 calls $6
EngineofProfit folds
bigbadshark7 calls $6
The Norse Horse calls $3
Man of Pride checks
*** FLOP *** []
The Norse Horse checks
Man of Pride checks
wr9966 bets $24
bigbadshark7 folds
The Norse Horse calls $24
Man of Pride folds
*** TURN *** [] []
The Norse Horse checks
wr9966 checks
*** RIVER *** [] []
The Norse Horse bets $48
wr9966 raises to $96
The Norse Horse calls $48
*** SHOW DOWN ***
wr9966 shows [] (a full house, Fours full of Fives)
The Norse Horse shows [] (a full house, Fives full of Kings)
The Norse Horse wins the pot ($261) with a full house, Fives full of Kings


After a while longer and having lost a 3 way all in coup with a monster draw, followed by a bad beat in another pot i found myself down that $750 and decided to retire for the evening and re-group for the next days play!


I am pleased to report that a quick 30 minute session this evening has resulted in a $375 gain, the first pot i played was HU vs a guy who again appears to be value betting and bluffing at the same time!!!



Seat 3: The Norse Horse ($511)
Seat 6: mannydominguez ($594)
mannydominguez posts the small blind of $3
The Norse Horse posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to The Norse Horse []
mannydominguez calls $3
The Norse Horse raises to $12
mannydominguez calls $6
*** FLOP *** []
The Norse Horse bets $12
mannydominguez calls $12
*** TURN *** [] []
The Norse Horse checks
mannydominguez bets $24
The Norse Horse calls $24
*** RIVER *** [] []
The Norse Horse checks
mannydominguez bets $48
The Norse Horse calls $48
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mannydominguez shows [] (a straight, Seven high)
The Norse Horse shows [] (a flush, Ace high)
The Norse Horse wins the pot ($191.50) with a flush, Ace high


That really did confuse me! Another guy got me good chasing a gutshot but i dont want to turn this into a bad beat blog!


Tonights plan is to hit the 20k 15k and 100fo again, no doubt throw in a couple more as the night goes on, maybe even revisit the $100 HU SNG's

Also i would like to say thanks to MikkyT from the blonde poker forum for providing me with these cards for the Hand History's. If you have time check out his site, he has just launched a new poker podcast and is eagerly seaking feedback!