A little piece of history

I said winning the first one would be an honour, I also said after a few drinks last night being the first person to spill booze on a DTD table would be something, but last night I made my own bit of history. Yep, I am officially the first person to bust out of a Dusk Till Dawn tournament.

Last night was the Media night of DTD, free booze and freeloaders all coming along to celebrate this momentus occassion. I must admit, I almost came in my pants when I arrived. The club is huge and looks amazing, even the tourament monitors are the very best HD screens. It was certainly well worth the wait.

It was only a free roll,so I dont really care about the bust, in fact Im glad I can say I was first. I sat next to Dave Colclough, out of position to him again just as we were at GUKPT Manchester. First hand I get is kings and he cracks it with Jack-Eight when he flops trips. The next hand I flop two pair and go out against a set of threes. Most of the party hadn't even sat down and I was gone, back to the free bar.

I played a couple of SNGs while I was there, they were pretty crapshooty but fun enough. I came 2nd in my 2nd game, losing to Pokernews buddy Mel Lofthouse but winning enough to cover a nice meal this afternoon. It scares me just how much time I could spend here, being as DTD is a very quick drive down the M1 for me.

I'm back again tonight for the £100 freezeout, hopefully last night was just a case of getting my bad luck out of the way right now and, most important of all, getting another line on the old Hendon Mob Database.

No Ireland Flag on my Hendon Mob for me

Tournament poker is a cruel sport, that at least is my opening line for my excuse for not coming home with a an Ireland flag on my Hendon Mob database. Fortunately I won my seat in the supersat the previous night so it was a relatively inexpensive weekend for me.

The supersat was funny. I've actually never won a seat in any type of satellite before, so this was a nice duck to break. We got down to the bubbler and a guy on the next table had once chip left and it was coming to his big blind. Unbelievably people were still limping into pots at my table, completely unaware of satellite strategy. I actually flopped a flush at this point with three big blinds left, thankfully I didn’t have a decision to make. The one chip guy flopped quads in his big blind but went out on his small blind.

The next day I had a tough draw against this woman:


Her name was Anne Colley, a Scandi and a maniac. She would call with any draw, any pair etc etc. She sucked out on about 5 overpairs in the first hour and built up a massive stack. After a while I reckon I had her susses and I had position on her. Very slowly and surely I took pot after pot from her and went into day 2 7th in chips.

The next day did not go so well. I couldn’t get started. I kept getting marginal hands like pocket sixes or ace-jack and would be reraised off them. That was literally the story of day 2 for me, I slowly got my stack dwindled down into nothing and ended up making a suicide push into a pocket aces. I'm not unhappy with how I played, but I'm pretty certain I could have played better.

The next day was the same story, I played in the side event and built up a big stack again. This time round at least I can claim a bad beat story (although a marginal one) when I reraised with queens and got called by ace-jack.

My old mucker Jen was very unlucky not to win it, she really is the deepstack queen and worth a bet at the next Green Joker Festival in February.

Great weekend, not really in the mood to play poker at the moment. I have Dusk Till Dawn to attend next week two times and it would be very cool to take down the first DTD title.

Roll On Waterford

I'm off to Waterford on Thursday and it couldn't come quicker for me in playing terms. Since my big score in Australia I've been hot and cold online and playing somewhat 'distracted'. I've got a few little hush hush side projects on the go as well as my writing at the moment and its been hard to concentrate on my bread and butter cash games.

So Waterford should be good, 15,000 starting chips and its rare I loose my focus in a live game, so any losses will be my own fault. I also have an added incentive to win the €40,000 first prize, its made out of Waterford Crystal and I am under strict instuctions to bring some Waterford Crystal back for my mother. Watch out guys, I'm playing to win.

I'd love to get a decent cash in Ireland, I've donated more than my fair share of money to the Irish Poker community so I think I'm due a reasonable cash from one of the three events. This would also get a nice looking Ireland flag on my Hendon Mob stats, which we all know is so much nore important than the money :).

I notice I'm at the standard 225-1 to win the main event, which is more than fair as there will be plenty of players with a better live record than me. If the market was open and the odds were good enough, I would fancy to put a little bet on myself to make the final table, I've got a pretty good record of doing that in the few festivals I've played this year.

Next year should see me making a bigger effort on the festival circuit. At the moment I'm making enough so that a GUKPT event every other month wont break the bankroll. I dont remotely fancy any events further a field than that as the EPTs and such are simply no value whatsoever. The Irish Open is another no value event which I would actually love to play in next year, I think I might try and satelitte into that one.

And as soon as I get back from Ireland the countdown to sodding Christmas begins.

Finally over the jetlag

My weak hopes of winning the Pokernews Cup points race were scuppered when, like most leaderboard type gigs, the overall winner is the guy that wins the main event and thats that. I really wish I had booked my trip for just another day so I could have played in the last side event, ah well.

The next thing on the poker calendar is the Blondepoker Waterford Open. Like the Green Joker Festival, its a crazy irish deep stack affordable event which should be as much fun to lose as it is to win (not really). It clashes with the GUKPT Blackpool event, which I am now starting to wish I'd have played, but Irish poker is way too good to pass up.

After which, I have just had my offical invitation to the opening night tournament for Dusk Till Dawn, which I've been looking forward to for oh....2 years. Its a stones throw away from a pizza place called Tipoo which I frequented as a student when I lived in Nottingham, so will have something to look forward to when I bust out.