WCOAPHad a great, if unsuccessful, time at DTD. I played the omaha (badly) and it was no surprise that I was an early exit there. I played far too many hands (most with non-nut potential) and was pretty disappointed with my play throughout. I certainly can talk a good game at omaha....just need to try and play one.
I then played the £50 + 6 comp, 4000 chips, 24 mn blinds. I was doing well for about an hour of this then blew up when I overplayed QK OTB against a BB 3 bettor. I figured he was pretty weak so should have shoved pre. Instead I let him see a flop and shoved there when I was miles behind...sigh!!
I then played a lot of £1/2 cash. I quite like my live cash game and rarely have losing sessions. I tend to just grind it out and let poor players pay me off when I hit a monster. The trouble was, there were not enough poor players at my table and when it got the stage where I didn"t think there were any (i.e. I was the poorest player at the table) I decided to cash up for an £18 loss over 6 hours of poker. I was actually quite pleased with this because I hardly got dealt any premium hands in 6 hours and taking away rake and dealers tips would have seen me in profit.
Onto the main event. I had a bit of a nightmare spot in that I had Gordon Casey to my left. He seemed quite an accomplished player, was raising with alarming regularity and raking in a lot of pots at little risk. To make matters worse, he then doubled up (straight over straight) and looked good to continue bossing the table. The only good thing for me about his game was that he gave away a whole load of info and I felt he was exploitable. The trouble was, I couldn"t do this very effectively when he was sat to my left. I went into the first break with 9K playing much less pots than I"d have liked to (losing them mostly..LOL)
James Barber (JBworldwide) was also ready to take on the table captain and after the break took a big pot off Gordon. I knew that Gordon would be looking for a spot to get his chips back and it came just before the next break...
blinds 75/150 guy to my right raised to 500, I looked down at AQ in the hijack and decide to flat call. Gordon then popped it up to 2200 (I think) This looked such an obvious squeeze that I decided that shoving would be profitable here. I didn"t need to do it, but felt this was a good spot. Unfortunately the guy to my right shoved in the rest of his 12K stack so I had to fold. Gordon then dwelt before calling about 70% of his stack off with 35o
. Original raiser had KK which held up.
I was gutted about missing out on this and probably tilted a bit in the next level (my last). I lost about 1500 more than I should have with TT and a raise with AQ that got 4 callers and missed the flop had me down to about 6.5K. I also thought that Gordon would be tilting badly after the break, but he was pretty composed and cost me a cheeky prop bet with JB that he wouldn"t last 15 minutes after the break.
Dust hand occured towards the end of level 4. guy to my right again raises to 600. I look at AJ and think of shoving, but given that this guy has only shown strength so far, decide against that so folded right?? wrong I went for the flat call deciding that AJ does have some potential in position. Gordon then shoved the rest of his stack in (about 6K). Original raiser dwells then folds. I"m pretty sure that gordon is squeezing light again and whilst I"m not happy calling off with AJ decide there is a good chance to felt him and get myself back into the game. I made the call and found myself up against K7s. a 7 on flop and river left me with just over 1 BB which went in the next hand.
So another APAT adventure finishes earlier than planned. I have a string of early exits to my name in APAT events and this is mainly due to the way I play rather than bad luck. I do tend to take a lot of risks early on in a tournament, playing a wide range of hands and making a lot of loose calls in position. In the few times that I have gone deep in deepstack events, it has been playing this way and has normally resulted in getting deep with a decent stack too so I"m not ready to change my approach yet.
Anyway, it was great to meet up with and play poker with such a top bunch of people. Thanks to Des, Rich, Tony for their work. Thanks to DTD staff for hosting such a great event (this venue is the nuts). Thanks to leigh for letting me crash in his room on thursday. Hope I didn"t stink it out too much
