A winner’s perspective

My pleasure at winning through a pair of satellites to a seat at the opening leg of the 2011 PokerPlayer UK Tour was tempered by the knowledge that I had never before sat down to play a single hand of poker in a live environment.

On The Waterfront

Arriving at the Harbourside Casino – itself a feat for someone until recently more used to navigating the lanes of The Scottish Highlands than the Bristol one way system – I was conscious that much of my concern for the hours to come was about avoiding any breach of etiquette, or rules of play – than my actual performance.

This evaporated as the cards were shuffled and the hands began to be played out. Seated with the dealer on my right and the sun on my back, I was watching my fellow players on the sauna that was table 10 as well as those others closest by. The early levels were dominated by a pair of more aggressive players, and my resolve to keep it tight for the first few levels was helped by a succession of uninviting hands, but in the main most of the excitement seemed to be from the seemingly endless shouts of ‘all-in’ to summon the PokerPlayer video crew to table 8.

Chips were being accumulated by a couple of players but there had been no bust-outs by the time the first break was taken. On our return to the table a standard raise from UTG with 7-7 got me a call from the big blind, my small c-bet was called but it didn’t look as if he had hit the flop, and whilst a 7 on the turn gave me the set I was unable to draw any more chips from my opponent.

The increasing levels started to impact on those who had not been blessed with cards or able to steal to maintain their chips stacks, and after a couple of tangles, one with Coral pro Mark English where he pressurised me whilst I had missed the flop completely with my A-Q suited, I was one of them, periodically glancing anxiously at the screen warning of the next rise in the blinds and the antes which had now kicked in.

Diamonds Are Forever

The turning point of my day came after watching Oscar Time give me a small profit in The Grand National. With the average chip stack at around the 10,000 mark and the blinds approaching my pile of less than 4,000 chips I decided that with Ad-8h it was time to shove. I was not happy when after the button called he was followed by Mark in the BB. I was even less happy when turning the cards I saw that I was a massive underdog facing A-T and Mark’s A-Q. The flop brought nothing to any of us.

The turn brought a third diamond, and before I had time to calculate my chances with these extra outs the dealer had laid down the fourth diamond, and the back door flush had tripled me up. Mark was not at all bitter with the beat and whilst I had not knocked him out he was on life support and a couple of hands later gave up his bounty when his button push missed the flop and he headed for the side games.

The Dirty Dozen

After a long period looking down on nothing playable and few opportunities to make any kind of move, the size of the blinds now made stealing imperative and I was happy to keep my head above water even though I was falling behind the average stack size.

By now fully engrossed in the play I relaxed and consequently made my first error, with A-A popping up UTG I announced raise but omitted to state an amount and made a string bet. It was deemed a call and saw the table fold around to the BB, a flop of 2-2-2 had me thinking the worst could possibly come about following such a basic error, but the smallest c-bet took down the pot. Thankfully from this point on my hands or positional opportunities allowed me to amass further chips and take me to the last 20 players.

This was when the first attempts to produce a chop deal began to be made, while some players were almost pleading (understandably) for the money to spread beyond the top 12 finishers, I was frantically trying to calculate if my stack would see me into current prize pool. No deal was agreed, as I later learned so that Peter Drakes (4th) could see off a mouthy irritant empty handed. His departure co-incided with a couple of other exits, one to a harsh runner-runner straight and soon the deal was struck to see all the remaining players into the cash. Gary Smolinski as BB to my cut-off was hovering up chips without any great difficulty, but it was Peter and Brian Yates who were leading the way with around 50% of the chips between them as the final table beckoned.

3.10 To Yuma

During another break it was Gary who reminded me that my initial $3.30 investment meant I was freerolling like a runaway train, thus encouraging me to loosen up and look for every opportunity to steal and pressurise.

A few early casualties, including Gary, soon had the table reduced to six, putting Brian Yates UTG to my button. For good or ill I was sure that I had successfully cultivated a TAG image (maybe to everyone else I was just a nit), this was vital when Brian raised and I shoved my stack. On folding he showed his 99, I felt it was not the time to give him and the others at the table any reason to reappraise their view of me by showing my 77. 

He presumably (and rightly) felt quite confident when he pushed all-in against my cut-off raise with AK, but I was content that if I was to go out it would be pushing my stack with AQ, thinking that I would be in a race with something from 77 to JJ, but in an “online” moment after the flop brought no flush/straight possibilities, a Queen on the turn resulted in a justified slap of the wall even though he had me well covered, and my observation that this site was sooooo rigged.

By now we were well into the early hours of the morning and a combination of fatigue, couples with a certain amount of “what the hell let’s give it a lash,” led to a few questionable plays resulting in Simon Griffin and Peter Drakes heading for the rail.

Recognising my earlier string bet error and a couple of confused raise by….. raise to style bets and the fact that my sight was becoming an issue – glasses on to see the cards, off to see the board – I took to calling my bets and leaving it up to the dealer from there. On one occasion when I just could not count what quantity of what chips were in my hand, I just called all-in – it was easier and successful. 

Last Man Standing

If this had been an online knock-out event Ali Elmorssy would already have been well rewarded for his play and it was he who saw off both Peter and then Brian thus establishing a 2:1 chip lead as we went heads-up around 2.00am.

I am told that he was pushing with middle pairs, suited cards, strong face cards and I was folding everything in BB and pushing back with, well, rubbish mostly, playing almost as loose as I had tight earlier.

Somehow around 3.30am I had managed to reverse the starting situation, without (I think) a flop being dealt. A shove from Ali had me looking at K-6 off. Now I could claim that I had got a read on him, that with my failing eyesight I thought they were suited, that Peter’s spectacular success with the same hand earlier had inspired me, but I thought a King was most likely live. I did have Ali well covered and if I lost I could go to bed. When he showed his 4-4 my two over-cards did not look such a bad call but a wholly blank board had us pretty much back where we had started, Ali perhaps with a greater advantage than at the outset, except that I had now determined to push with just about anything.

It was again a mostly pre-flop battle. On occasion I pushed all-in against his raises, and perhaps my TAG image had held as most of my raises got through and the 20/40K blinds + antes were getting the chips moving around. Once more barely a card was seen and I was back in possession of around 550,000 of the 930,000 chips.

There was a “Crisis? What crisis?” moment at about 4.30am when having lost our charming and amusing dealer from Estonia no Gala staff were left available to deal.  There followed a short break that saw Ali and I making matching pleas for something to get us both into a pot and a joint admission (in the gents actually) that at this stage Prize Money and Grand Final Seat be damned, what we both wanted was the trophy and the win!

We didn’t have to wait long, with Tournament Director John Baker assuming the dealer’s duties the third hand brought me A-A allowing me to offer a (totally unnecessary as it turned out) performance of uncertainty and hopefully weakness as I eventually pushed in around 150,000 chips to be insta-raised all-in by Ali.

AA v KK – a cruel way to end, possibly only matched if a King fell, but it was the Ace that appeared on the flop, and a blank on the turn ended any slim straight/flush hope and hands were being shaken, congratulations and commiserations offered and accepted. Earlier casualties Gary Smolinski, Mark English and Peter Drakes among them, offered sincere good wishes – see you in Edinburgh!

This is Live Poker!