TRIP REPORT DTD JANUARY DEEPSTACK
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Played day 1b on Saturday. Thr buy in has increased to £500 so I will need to be selective about how many of these I play and will try satellites for March (February is not in my plans as I have a week in Ireland late Jan/early Feb). They have however increased the starting stack to 30,000 with a 40 minute clock and this comp is exceptional in terms of the amount of play that it offers.
My starting table was OK. One "internet kid" sat directly to my right and he was probably the best player at the table. I played a steady few levels and eventually found two situations that should have seen my stack move upwards, but I wasn"t running good. First example was that after a raise and a flat call, I made a loose call on the button with
. The flop came
which gave me the nuts. The original raiser only had about 7k left and went all in. Easy call for me and he showed
. He walked off but had to come back as the turn and river were hearts for an unlikely flush. 15 minutes later it"s me holding the kings and after a raising war the opponent shows queens and has about 15k (his whole stack) invested. It was all in pre and board runs out
for a straight and a split pot! Despite this I was slowly building my stack and after 10 hours play had over 100k when the average was 66k. All going very nicely. Meanwhle Alan Armitage arrives at the table with warnings to all that his blinds are not for sale. He almost immediately gets involved in a couple of pots with the internet kid and it"s not long before they clash in a huge pot where all the money goes in on the turn. Alan is drawing with 16 outs and hits one of them to send the youngster on his way.
We took a break and there was one level left on day 1. I had 110k and I think the blinds were 1500/3000/300 - something like that anyway. Unfortunately I chose this level to lose all discipline and somehow managed to donk the whole stack off, something I need to work on as I tend to do this too often! My biggest mistake was 3 betting a loose player when I had positiion on him and
in my hand, only to get reraised by a rock. For some reason I got stubborn and put him all in - a reasonable move if the blinds were 5k 10k but not at this point - I can"t really explain my thinking other than I failed to adjust to such a long structure. His AK held. That put me down to a bowl whish didn"t last much longer.
Despite the one level where I played poorly I was happy with my early play and the fact that I built my stack well in a tough field gives me hope for the future. I hope I can learn from my mistakes and believe I will.
Finished the night with a few beers with Alan who had made day 2 in a good position. I was hoping he would win as I know he wouldn"t waste the money if he won
We shared a cab back to the Holiday Inn where some considerate poker players had ordered too much pizza so we had a slice. Alan was looking for a final beer but I"d had enough by then - probably annoyed with myself a bit for my last level of play. Still, upwards and onwards and not long to Brighton. Looking forward to my first APAT event of 2012.
Great comp at DTD, there"s nowhere to hide with such a structure and congrats to all who cashed.
