Surf’s Up
After spending almost a whole day recovering from the effects of the free bar at Rob Yong’s Dusk Til Dawn ‘we’re almost there’ party, we headed down to Cornwall for a very short summer break in search of sea, sun (and ice cream). The signs weren’t good as we battled through torrential rain for the most part of the tedious drive down but once there, the skies were at least occasionally blue.
Once back a few of us headed down to London on Friday for the Gutshot Series Of Poker main event, a £300 freeze-out whose structure replicates the $10k WSOP main event ie, a full stack, two hour levels, with a two hundred runner field played out over four days. I was a little sceptical about making the trip, four days is a long away stint for a relatively small buy-in comp but even sitting here on the rail as Day 3 starts I’m really glad I made the effort and am sure that getting to play another super-slow structured comp can only be good practise and will hopefully be of some benefit at some point in the future.
It’s been a year since I’ve been down there during which time the premises have been expanded to incorporate a second larger cardroom. It’s pretty cool, the double doors open up right onto Clerkenwell Road and to see a room full of two hundred card players riffling chips must be a strange and intriguing sight to the uninitiated passers by.
Performance-wise, I’m sorry to say that all I got to do was grind for nine hours on Day 1 followed by a further six hours on Day 2 before my short stack lost a race with 10-10 vs. A-K. I didn’t pick up many big hands and the majority of my plays were clearly woefully transparent in that I should have checked when I bet and bet when I checked etc, etc…you get the picture. God knows how many flops I saw with suited filth and small pairs, all to no avail - from an optimists point of view I can at least feel confident that a good rush awaits.
The two most memorable hands were ones where I didn’t really get to partake; the first was when I was dealt two kings but the second one flipped over before I could grab it - a bit unlucky, but boy did I feel sick when the action behind me went raise, re-raise, call, re-re-raise, call. The jack-high board was then checked through to the river where an all-in bet scooped it.
The second went some way to rectifying the bad luck of the first; at 300-600/75, I moved-in UTG with J-Q for 4000 and the rock on my left then announced that he was also all-in…somehow though the dealer managed to sweep his cards up (two red aces) and when all the commotion died down, the ruling was that it was deemed a passed hand and once everyone else had folded I picked up the blinds and antes.
A shameless plug now, but hey, it’s my blog; the good news for anyone who wants to sign up on William Hill through the above link is that not only will you get the best rake back deal on Crypto but now you will also get rake back on STT’s and MTT’s.

The Worm Turns
The post-Vegas urge to play again didn’t take long to return as I squeezed in four of the seven events at the Grosvenor UK Open at Luton. The weird part was I actually felt something akin to a warm glow as I entered the card room on Monday evening - as someone who tries to spend as little time as possible in any casino, let alone the delights of Luton, this was mildly surprising.
For the sake of balance I feel it only fair to point out that my beatnik sandals and hoodie got frowned upon in the lobby and such items, I was told, will be no longer tolerated.
Good feelings aside I didn’t fare too well in the first two comps, a 200NL and a 500PL and had to wait until Thursdays 750NL to eventually get into my stride and go deep. I got chips early and generally had a great time calling raises with all sorts of filth and generally being a pain in the ass for anyone who had a legitimate hand. Two tables out and with just one 45 minute level remaining I was in great shape with 60k when the average was 35k.
Two raise, bet the flop, dwell and pass to the re-raise type situations later I was back in the pack though and with an overnight stop looming I was looking for one last situation to exploit, quickly.
Seven handed I made it 9k to go with A-J and Frode Gjesdal moved all-in for 28k. Not a nice decision to face, neither a clear fold or a clear call in my keen to gamble eye. A fold would be the third fold on the trot and as I normally do when faced with such a decision I opted for the one that meant I would at least get to see what I was up against, in this case a dominating A-K, right out of the text book and I bit the dust a couple of hands later.
(for the record Tikay did the exact opposite, refusing to commit his chips, coming back on Day 2 with just two BB’s and going on to lift the trophy later that evening).
“It is a bigger mistake to fold a potentially winning hand than it is to stay in with a potentially losing one”. I can’t remember who wrote that (it might be Barry Greenstein) but it stuck and I guess it helps me sleep a little easier some nights.
The main event sadly, was Dullsville Central, with no big hands or situations encountered in nearly five hours of play and I’d blinded down to 1600 when I finally found two picture cards but was unable to hold off the dreaded ace high.
It’s not all darkness and despair though: by the time I entered the Sunday 50k comp on William Hill I was but one glass away from polishing of a refreshing bottle of chilly white. I can’t remember how, but I did double up on the first hand and then again not long after. With four times the average I resisted all urges to ‘hurry it along’ and managed to keep my nose clean all the way through to a satisfying thirty minute heads-up duel where I eventually busted my opponents Q-Q with K-8 (8 on flop, K on river, tyvm WH) to clinch first place.

Home Again
Boy it feels good. There were about ten Brits on the flight home and all of us were as excited about getting home as we were about heading out there in the first place.Vegas is unique, but you need to be running well to fully appreciate (tolerate) the glitz, all those people and the never-ending queues.
The house was great but too remote and next year I’ll just bite the bullet and book into one of the posh hotels in the middle of the strip, probably the Bellagio - every walk or taxi queue you can avoid is effort saved and money well spent.
To the main event then; what a big disappointment, again. It was scary just how much this years effort resembled last years. I got to sit next to a guy in a jack of spades costume and the whole table were happily over-betting pots, putting a third pre-flop raise in with a pair of 10’s and one memorable on there backs moment; an all-in call with 8-3 on a 2,6,7,8,9 board - a pretty crazy call, but when the guy who did the betting proudly rolled over his A-9 I knew this was gonna be no ordinary game of poker. Watching this and not being able to benefit didn’t have a positive effect and within the first two hour level my stack had been quartered, in part due to some marginal calls, but on this table it really was hard to bail out, but mainly due to a flopped set that got runner/runnered. To say I was steaming is putting it mildly.
Back from the break with 2500 I eventually check raised my last chips in from the SB with 9-10s on a 3,3,9 flop but the bettor on the button had aces.
In hindsight a squeaky tight game would have eventually reaped ample rewards on such a weak table, but all I saw was dollar signs with easy money written all over them and in no time at all I had deviated from my original game plan and jumped right in - hey the water was warm!
I apologise if this sounds like a bitter ‘woe is me’ rant about how bad everybody played, it’s not intended to be, I’m just disappointed. At the end of the day it’s just another trip and another handful of tournaments but there should be no doubt that this is the dead money tournament of the year. Forget the nay-sayers who claim it’s a two week luck-fest, the rewards if you can get off to a good start, build some momentum, take each day as it comes and run well really are worth the effort.