Michael Greco has been learning poker the hard way, going from big stack to felt in minutes at the GUKPT London
I’m writing this fresh from being knocked out of the London leg of the GUKPT where, after five levels of play, I went from hero to zero in two hours. Before you turn the page, I’m not about to reel off a bad beat story. No, this is about me blowing a £150k payday, which I call, ‘Making a move at the wrong time, you idiot.’
Everything had been going well in the early stages. I had 36,000 chips, while the average stack was 16k. I was feeling confident and ready to take on anyone at the table who stood in the way of me becoming a dominant chip force by the end of the first day. Normally I’m renowned for grinding it out and never really amassing too many chips early on, so this was new territory for me.
On the hand in question I raised it up with 6♥-7♥ and got one caller from the small blind. The flop came 6♠-7♠– K♦, which was beautiful. There’s always the danger you can get outdrawn with these types of hands but, hey, if the Scandies can do it why can’t I? After he checked I made a pot-sized bet, which he called. The turn was the 5♠, which, for the observant among you, put a potential flush on the board.
He then bet out – more than the pot – and I sat there trying to work out if he’d make that sort of bet if he’d just made his flush. Was he trying to represent or did he already have it? Wouldn’t he want to check-raise me? In my head I tried to convince myself that he’d got A♠-K or something similar and that he was drawing to the flush. So I moved all-in and before I had the chance to get my chips in the middle he’d beaten me to it. Oops. He showed A♠-Q♠ for the nut flush and I missed my four outs on the river to make a full house.
Not over
But that wasn’t quite it. I then proceeded to get involved in another big hand shortly after and went out. One minute I was flying, next minute I was in donksville. It’s one of the worst feelings in poker and I walked out of the room feeling physically ill. My limbs turned to jelly, my mind was numb; I put my head in my hands and nearly cried like a baby. I’d actually rather go out on a bad beat than go out playing badly.
Every day I’m learning more and more about poker, but things like this are still hard to take. I have to admit that at the moment I’m feeling as bad as I’ve ever felt since I started playing. I know this will only last a few days and I’ll get over it, but in the meantime I believe there’s only one thing to do – go out and get extremely well lubricated. I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!
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