Sulk
I travelled down to the very friendly Grosvenor venue in Cardiff with Chris Bruce in a swift, ever so slightly dangerous, two and half hour run - him driving, me pumping an imaginary brake.
It was a busy morning and I just never got around to eating anything before we set off; luckily Chris had some wine gums in the car. The tournament started at four but for some reason the casino saw fit not to serve any food until the ‘eat it if you dare’ buffet which was set for nine. The food and one or two inexperienced dealers aside, Blue Square once again put on a very good show (one girl put the discards straight back onto the top of the deck, good job she was pretty).
Even with just half the field present on Thursday, the place was buzzing. Neil Channing organised seventy five runner £200 last longer which is sure to be a nice 15k sweetener for one of the finalists. Yes, I partook, but no, I won’t be picking that pot up.
I was really, really card dead over the seven hours with one A-Q, one K-K with which I managed to pocket a whole 450 in blinds and 10-10 twice, both of which had to be slung.
The biggest pot I snagged was got by making a patented iffy call, in a raised pot, with an 8-6 on a suited 8,7,7,4,J board. That rocketed me up to 18k and with another one or two modest pots going my way I actually reached the dizzy heights of a low to mid twenties stack; the makings of a good session all appeared to be present.
I then overplayed a flush draw when I could have taken a free turn card, promptly dropping back to 15k after feeling somewhat obliged to bluff the river when I missed everything. Two 50/50’s headed south during the next two levels and I was on life support for the last half hour with a puny 6k. I found just about the worst spot when I made my last stand, calling all-in holding K-J against Roberto Romanello‘s big stack and A-K.
Tournaments are tough and with the numbers now regularly hitting three hundred, realistically I guess I shouldn’t expect to be hitting as many final tables; less finals in theory then, but more wonga when you eventually get there.
Chris, who finished the day on a very comfortable 50k, managed to shave twenty minutes off on the return journey home - luckily for me I got to sleep through most of it.