The club is owned and run by poker players and you can tell. The MTT structure was excellent and if anything may have been a touch... and only a touch slow. The 108 runner game ended up having to do a 5 way chip count at 6am when the time ran out.
I thought that with it being a dedicated poker club on a invite only opening weekend the field would be very good and while there were a few faces amongst the runners I was surprised to quickly assess my opening table as about 60-70% weak passive. With that in mind I didn't waste any time getting busy and had doubled my starting 5k in chips by level 2/3. There was some shocking play at my table from a few... some did not know what they were doing but I was surprised to find out that one of the guys was a big poster on the Blonde forum... goes to show you should not always believe what u read on the internet. He managed to pass his BB to an early min raise with 5 callers?!??!?! FishandChips was one of the few i rated at the table and it was nice to say hi to a fellow blogger.
My favourite hand from the opening levels was against a guy who had a really bad tell. He looked a little like Napoleon Dynamite which amused me no end.
Heads up for rollz Napoleon?
He'd already played and hand vs someone else where he was obviously on a overpair and obviously behind and i'd watched him and thought I had him pretty much pegged. Anyway I'd raised it in mid-late pos with As9s and get min reraised which I have to call. At this point in time I'm thinking AK / AQ for matey boy. He looks like he's got a hand, flop comes J T 2 . Just one look at him and i know he's missed it so I lead out. He flat calls, I'm sure he's got no pair but a touch worried that I'm not going to be able to get him off it. Turn comes a lovely 9 for me. All my money goes in and he obliges with a call for all his stack with AK... i had him well covered.
I managed to double my stack only showing one hand and as is usually the case managed to get dumped back down to earth with a total monster. I managed to flop a set of Kings in a raised and re-raised pot only to lose to 9T on a K T Q J board... how he managed to see a turn with me firing big at it was beyond me. I then floated up and down between 7 and 14k for a long time. A break came when I jammed preflop with JJ vs AK .... the A K 2 flop did not look good but a T on the turn and rivered Q pointed my in the right direction and I doubled up again the very next hand with AK on a KK5 flop. He picked a flush draw on the turn and decided to ask me a question.... he got an answer.
I was then chipped up and in no mood to muck about, a blind vs blind headbut but saw me making what was probably a bad call with QTs to the BBs all in. I'd raised to 4k and he jammed for another 13k extra. He flipped A9 and there were a few gaping mouths when I called with QT.... a ten obliged the river and matey boy exited muttering something about bad players.
We were down to last 17 or so and I was a comfortable chip lead at this point. Here the make or break hand came. I've already posted this on the Betfair forum and it managed to split opinion quite well. I think next time I may well pass but it has to be said ... getting them in is much more fun.
I'm stacked up on about 80k or so, the guy to my left is also on a chunk of about 45k. I raised it up to 4k with 5s6s. He flat calls and the flop comes a rather nice looking 6c 4s 9s. I check looking to check raise and he just sticks his remaining 40k into the pot!?
Now I dwell this up for a long time. Obviously I'm probably behind most of the time, the question is do I want to gamble on hitting one of my 13 or so outs in order to command 25% of the chips in play with 17 players left? :) I finally decide that WTF am im playing 56s for if I pass on this flop and stick 'em in. He sighs and say good call and flips 88. Running red Queens and I'm back in the mire. I make it into the money and then the final table but walk a A9 steal into the BB with Aces and that was my end in 9th place for £220. Oh well always next time, at least I have my second entry on the Hendon Mob results database now!
Dusk Till Dawn is fantastic and what's more it has it's heart in the right place! It deserves every poker players support and I would encourage everyone to give it a visit!
