March 09

March 09

Sorry for not posting in March I have been up to my eyes in work and not playing so much.
I did manage to get to a couple of the GUKPT events and also played in the bounty event for Talk Sport.
Seemed that it sold out each event with 2000 players. If you were the lucky one who knocked me out well done and hope you manage to spin the free money up to something good.

I have been helping a friend of mine grow his poker club in NW4 this month and seen some pretty crazy action in a 1 2 nlh game.
More importantly I have been mentally preparing for this years Irish Open. I think that this is by far the best event of the year in Europe and something I was close to wining 2 years ago. I want this title more than a WSOP bracelet (unless main event or the 50K horse) that’s what this event means to me.

I think there will be about 800 runners this year and I am in a very positive place and ready for the 5 day marathon.
I will be updating daily from Dublin and am sure I will have many fun stories to tell you all.

So the GUKPT was coming to London and with a whole range of tournaments to play in this should be a good week for the Vic.

I decided to play in the 500 plo and the main event as I was busy with work commitments so had to pass on the others.

I have been working in a local poker club in Hendon trying to help them grow their business so poker has been back in my life full time again. It has been hard working all night and sleeping all day as glamorous as it all sounds it does effect your normal life especially as I am trying to grow my own business so time is very precious to me at the moment.

The Main event.

What a line up. My table had sitting there, Jeff Kimber, John Tabatabai, Sammy George, Sam Tricket as well as some other well known scandies. Ok Good for a laugh and maybe some big pots were going to be played with a chance to get a big chip stack early on.

The game was slower than I thought it would be and Sammy was playing pretty tight! Well tight for him, I was running hot getting a lot of cards but not getting to much action. I think I had Aces 6 times Kings 4 times and AK 7 times. I played them all aggressively to try to get paid the max but this does not always work. The good thing is though that they never got cracked as I prefer to win a little than loose a lot.

Again I pick up AK suited UTG and we are about to go into the second break. I limp and John raises in early position. Sammy George calls and I decide to flat call. John announces that this hand will probably take 10 minutes which is the break time and we continue. The flop comes out KhJs7c. I am not sure why but I didn’t have the best feeling about my hand so I decided to play it cautiously as I was in a pot with 2 very aggressive players and didn’t think I needed to put my whole stack at risk unnessacaraly. I checked and John bet out 700, Sammy then raised to 1500 and my confidence in the hand started to get worse.
The crowd was now gathering in force as this looked like it was going to be a big pot and with Sammy in it they all wanted to watch.
I called the 1500 after much thought as how to play the hand, I was sure I had the best hand and I also may have look strong limping UTG and check calling. The turn bought the 8s and again I checked. John bet out 2650 I believe and Sammy thought for ages and ages, I was preying for him to call to give me the value but he decided against it and passed wanting to show his hand and clearly in pain that he folded. He did say that if this was a cash game he would have called in less than 3 seconds. Lol. I decided to call as I was sure I could get paid if I hit the river. I was not sure if I was in front but if I checked the river he would have to have a hand to bet it as I was starting to look stronger. The river was 6s and once again I checked to let John take over. He did and bet out 5600 I moved all my chips into the middle and he called I shows my hand The nuts and he mucked. We all had a laugh about it and Sammy reveled he passed J8 (2 pair) hard to believe I know. John had 9T for a straight and I was the lucky fish who hit the river. LOL Was a fun hand and I came back from the break with 26K.
The day did not really get any better from there, I went card dead for hours and was grinding it out. Nick Gibson was moved to our table and players were raisng and re-raiseng before the action got to me so there was not a lot I could do.
I managed to walk into AK with AQ then walked into AJ with AT and finally on the button bushed with KT and found AK Not a lot I could do and as I didn’t take a bad beat I was ok with it, would have been nice to win 1 of those……….

I did manage to win a few $ on line this week finishing 32nd in a $215 comp with 414 runners and also won good in the mixed 8 game.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter..