and to bring this year"s up-to-date, my trip to the Wild West to play live:
A mid-month addition to my blog this week to share my adventures from a weekend in the Wild West....of Cumbria.
The journey from Kendal to Hensingham, nr Whitehaven, is not one for the faint-hearted. I arrive early to pick up Kostas (or Gus to most) looking typically hungover and going for what I can best describe as the "Nightcrawler" look - long overcoat, stubble, pasty, - rough as toast.
We spend the next two hours, after an unintentional diversion when I missed a turn off the M6, discussing tournament play - including hand selection, range, position, re-stealing, set-mining, M, structure, and exploiting opponents. Gus shows a good understanding, offers some thoughts of his own, and we arrive at 1:30pm ready for the tournament ahead.
To my delight, our dealer is delayed by an accident and I am asked to take her place, which gladly only lasts four or five hands. I settle down with my 10k stack and begin to cultivate my image as the self-titled "tightest player in Cumbria", until the Real Cumbrians take offence to Kendal"s claim to their County lines and I become "the tightest player in Westmorland".
Two hands later and the not-unexpected cry of "All-in" comes from a man who I will only name by his well-earned nickname, which I have already given you. If you gave some people a million chips with a 5/10 Level One and a two hour clock...
I pick up a few pots early on and grow my stack to 12k. With a young ipod wearing, Liverpool shirted, early raiser and two callers, I elect to call the button with KQ. Flop comes J9s7s, and our pre-flop Kopite leads for a third-pot bet with one caller, so I call again. The Q turn sees another lead for a similar size bet and I follow my flop thinking and make a 2.5x raise after the man behind me folds. Our friend from across the park takes some time to make the call. The
river means I know I"m losing and fold to his river bet to be shown the boat.
Gus has decided to take onboard almost none of our chat, with the main purpose to help him cultivate his naturally super-aggo play with some actual reasoning to his actions, and steams up to 30k and then all the way back down again. Gus, Gus, Gus!
Down to 7.5k and with a promise to return for my chips I am delighted to be seated two to the left of "All-In". The players I leave behind at my opening table all sigh and bemoan my luck in my new position. With blinds at 100/200 before the first break looms, and an early raise from the big-stack, "All-in" makes it 3k to go. I shove and get two callers with AQ and 99. The K on the flop sees me on 22k. My Aces in the last hand just add the blinds.
Our chip leader, who having flopped a set of threes and geting paid off on turn and river bets by "All-in" with his paired deuce, secures a $50 bonus from our online sponsor, with further added money for first out and the winner.
Hand of the opening session was undoubtedly involving "All-in" again. I missed the action, but saw the face of one of his many victims of the day, who then had to go and sit in his car for ten minutes to take in what had happened. Thankfully we didn"t find him with the hosepipe in through the window! Our victim had got it in on the flop to be called with an unpaired 23, no draws. The turn and river delivered running deuces and wild celebration; chants of "We are the Champions" ensued from "All-in".
Post break, I picked up a pot three-betting some old school live donk (I jest) with AJs and other than that don"t remember too much else other than a loose UTG raise with small pocket pair that I folded on the flop. Two hands where I could have three bet against "All-in" with hands which would normally be outside my range would have delivered both a double-up and treble-up had I played a higher variance style and would have seen me breach 100k chips at 2k/4k level. My more cautious approach, however, meant that I had to fold a multitude of rags and rag-Aces in the face of earlier action as my M dwindled.
With the second break looming, "All-in" provides further hysterics when he berates a young lad to his left, who looked like he had just been told his dog had died, when facing not only a decision for his tournament life, but also a barrage of "I"ve no respect for you" and other banterage. He eventually folded his paired A weak-kicker, on a dry board, and "All-in" delighted in showing his paired K with more crys of victory sounding across the room.
With my returning stack now hitting 14 BBs and then down to 7BB, I called the short stacks 4 BB shove with my Q4 to see 62 and lose to the paired 2. My last 4 BBs get in against Q8 and lose to the paired 8.
The final half-hour in Whitehaven provided my final entertainment for the evening - I had a flat battery. Firstly, I employed two piss-heads to help me push the car across the carpark, narrowly avoiding rolling it straight into not one, but two vehicles. I then needed some light shining so I could see both bonnets, to connect jump leads. Fair play to the commitment of Lammy, who after I asked him to help out, replied "I have no lights". "Not a torch", I said, "your headlights". "I have no headlights either". I jabbed his ribs, cottoning on to his rouse and waited outside. When his car rolled past with no lights on and they told me they were driving 30-odd miles to Carlisle without them and disappeared half way up the road; Gus and I shared an incredulous look. They returned with headlights beaming. When you just want to get home (1.5 hours away) you can rely on poker players to seize the opportunity to make your evening more painful
With jump leads unsuccessful, I was finally towed down the hill, only after forgetting to set off in neutral before sticking it in 2nd gear, and then forgetting to turn my key and thus locking the steering. A local took pity (more likely just thought I was a complete dildo) and jumped in and got my car started.
Thanks go the Cavalry, and to whoever was stood at the gated entrance and then spectacularly fell into the hedge letting out a fantastic drunken groan as they struggled to the feet, as I continued to ponder my own predicament: you know who you are; although possibly not actually.
With wolves howling at the moon and tumbleweeds rolling through the streets on the journey home, thank God I never stalled the van. Then I really would have found out how wild it is out West.
