GUKPT Luton

After a bit of a break I donned my VC Poker shirt once again and headed up the M1 for the Luton leg of the GUKPT, otherwise known as the ‘proper shoes’ tournament. It was a really tough field which was evident before I even sat down, it seemed to attract all the big London based pros as well as obviously the midlands boys, its a very easy casino to get to in retrospect.

Despite all that, it was a table full of unknowns infront of me again and even better, there was the biggest muthafucking fish I’ve ever seen at mine. Archetypal calling station, regularly calls three streets with ace high, limped with aces and kings several times and generally looked like he thought we were playing blackjack throughout. He also forced me to fold pocket queens in a threeway pot on a 4-5-7-8-9 board when I was 2nd to act and facing a pot donk bet when both men called me on every street. I unprofessionally kneejerk muttered “I hope one of you has the six” as I mucked and rightly got a warning for it, turns out neither man did and not only did I fold the best hand I had to spend the next ten minutes apologising for it.

Unfortunately it was a full day of me maintaining a stack a couple of thousand either side of the average but I’m very pleased with how I played (other than the above hand) – I made some gutwrenching folds where I think a lot of players would have lost money, folding top pair three times to donkeys to relatively small bets when they cant have had anything other than sets or overpairs and also some big preflop folds of a similar nature. Unfortunately you don’t win tournaments by folding.



One highlight was playing with Ian Cox who had such a prolific year in 2007 and joined my table a few levels in. He recognised me from my writing and I’d heard a lot of good things about his professional manner at the table, which he confirmed when he sat down and started playing. A funny, friendly chap who really understands the game, even though he isn’t a professional poker player (he is in fact a professional sports better which explains a lot) he is a lot more professional than a lot of the so called ‘pros’ I know. He didn’t seem to make any mistakes and is still in the main event today and I’m routing for him (And me old mucker Dana Immanuel who is running well too).

Obviously I’m not and as we got to the final level I still had my average stack and wanted to gamble in the hopes of making a big stack for day 2 (as I didn’t want to drive all the way back with a vulnerable stack for day 2) and got my wish when I pushed all in in a 4 way limped pot (Why folks were limping at this stage I don’t know) and knew I was ahead of and would get a call from Nick ‘I thought you were on a draw’ Gibson as I was giving him a clear 2:1 call. I had king-queen of diamonds, he had 7-5 of clubs and he spiked the 7 on the river. No complaints, I wanted the call and he was also right to gamble, especially as I announced minutes earlier I was gambling too.

I had a great old time though and managed to do Luton to Sheffield in under one and a half hours, tilt driving is awesome. The structure at the GUKPT is brilliant and I’m already getting excited about Bolton next month and lets hope that that 2008 cash is finally on the cards.