DTD Grand Prix VI - Final Table
I"m still waiting to see the replay of this, and I know a few of you may have been watching it on the stream, but I want to get some of my thoughts down before it all fades from the memory. At my age shortterm memory is an issue.
I"d reached this stage of the tournament with a quite unbelievable level of rungood. I"ve been thinking back and I can"t remember losing a flip throughout the entire 3 days.
44>AK, AQ>88, QQ>AJ (despite the AKJ flop), A8>KK etc
I was getting value from my hands too, and making
some decent laydowns and I felt very comfortable
with where I was.
So we broke to a table of 9 with one more elimination needed before the Golden Chips became
of value and we move to the feature table.
9 soon became 8 when James "raggy" Clarke"s AK crushed the 99 of an all in player running out with a full house on the river.
I started the final 8 with the chip lead
1 Dale Parry 5,580,000
2 Jack Fairman 580,000
3 David Amos 8,545,000
4 Michael Wright 4,100,000
5 Simon Brown 2,485,000
6 John Sadler 1,160,000
7 Peter Evans 4,270,000
8 James Clarke 8,125,000
Blinds were 60000/120000/20000 and it soon became apparent that Raggy was going to be a tough guy to play against. He opened just about any pot he had the chance to. Not with nice easy to call/3bet raises either. His standard raise was to 520000, with the occasional foray up to 620000. Ultimate pressure on the shortstacks, but risky if either I or Peter Evans wakes up with a hand but I certainly didn"t.
I had very little that was playable and every and any attempt to play back at him met with a flat call at best.
C-bets were called too and given his reputation (they don"t call him raggy for nothing) it was hard to put him on a hand and to know whether a second bullet would be effective so I tended to give up on the turn since I didn"t seem able to
hit a flop whatever I held.
I 3-bet him once playing Qh6H which is the Stockton Massive nuts.He opened and I made 1,000,000 raise from the BB which he flat called and I think that hand was one where I should have c-bet since I picked up a flush draw on the flop but I didn"t have the cojones and since no heart fell on the turn or river and he led out way too much for a raise on the river to be in any way effective with no showdown value I had to let it go.
I wandered away from the table for a moment at one stage and came back to see all of Peter Evans chips being pushed towards Raggy. It seems Peter raised KK BvB and was called by Ah6h. C-bet, called, heart on turn, second barrel, called.
on river.... OUCH
I said I"d come back to the "always show a Jack" theme and it came in a hand vs Mike "flushthemout" Wright. We"d played together from a long way out and he"d shared the humour and the love. He"d benefitted from my folding JJ and thus starting the joke, and I"d benefitted massively from his folding QQ and we"d had some fun hands along the way. So
BvB I make a small raise with QJo and he calls.
Flop is J85 and I lead 400,000 which he raises to 1.2MM. Now, the only set he can feasibly have here is fives because for certain he 3bets JJ and 88, in fact BvB I"d be surprised if he doesn"t 3bet 55 too. He can, possibly have two pair, or
he can have QJ but again he definitely 3bets AJ, and almost certainly does the same with KJ so, I take some time and then reraise him another 2MM effectively asking him to fold, or shove.
He shoves and I call - he has.... 10 5, bottom pair and not much room to improve, which he doesn"t.
I"ve asked him about the hand and I understand that he thought I could fold to the raise on the flop, but to commit to the hand when I reraise?
Four handed the lad in Seat 1 whose blinds and button had been attacked relentlessly by Raggy finally gets a chance to be first to act in a pot without Raggy and open shoves about 2MM.
SB folds and I call from the BB with K8. It looks bad when he turns over A10 but I couldn"t put him on a hand that strong given the situation and position.
K high board and we"re down to three.
Still Raggy keeps raising and still I can"t find a way to play back at him but it"s not long before the third place is settled when Raggy"s K7 is too much for the 57 with which the ultimate ladderer eventually shoves. Not even with a 6 2 8 flop.
Headsup - 7MM v 27MM, all to do, nothing to lose.
the records will show that I continued to not have a hand here. I raised J8o, and shoved over the reraise for a morale booster - showed it too
after Raggy had folded saying "I had an Ace" (I understand he actually held Q8...)
Got a double up when the first marginally connected paint card I"d had in eons looked good enough to have a go with - Q10>77 to get me to 14MM v 20MM
Started to believe for a while and then, shortly after that I get dealt AJ in the BB. It felt like Birthday and Christmas rolled into one.
Ace Jack sooooted too.
Raggy raises the button and I hollywood the consideration of what to do.
Eventually I 3bet hoping to get him to at least call, but preferably to raise/shove
He shoves! Happy days indeed. I snap call and he instantly says the last words you want to hear in these circumstances... "I"ve got Aces"
I needed help from the dealer for one last time.
I didn"t get any. But if you"re going to lose headsup then what better way to lose than on a hand that just played itself.
James was a worthy winner and I believe I was a worthy second. Only he and I played much on that final table. Peter had a go but having James to his left made it even harder for him.
I may never in my life have such a lengthy spell of rungood but I also doubt I have ever played quite so well. I won a lot of small pots through the days with a lot less than premium hands and I"m inordinately proud of the fact that I
survived Day 1. Old David wouldn"t have done that. Old David would have busted very mid-afternoon.
I"ll come back to the final table once the video has been posted and I can see how much I was outplayed and how much I was outdrawn. I"m hoping it"s not too morale-sapping to watch.
Disclaimer - some of this may be mildly inaccurate as to timings/bet sizes ect. As previously stated my memory"s not what it was
