Ship it.....

....and ship it out again!


Here's a slightly bemused picture of me picking up the £10,000 1st prize for winning the £300 FO at the DTD August Deepstack festival.




Nice huh? 2nd DTD win within a few weeks and my last 3 visits have gone 2nd 1st 1st! Thinking of moving to Nottingham.

The only trouble was I'd sold 50% on in advance. It seemed like a good idea at the time, honestly. To be fair if I'd not sold on the % I prob would not have played as we were in York on the Friday for Ebor.. of course that was rained off so a 13 hour pub crawl replaced the racing. Then on Saturday morning I had to drive to Manchester to pick Jack up from his grandmas... then drive back to Leamington .... then grab 40min kip and drive to Nottingham still feeling slightly woolly. Hardly the greatest preparation and if I'd not had backers I'd have sacked it i think.

Anyway, 92 runners stumped up the £300 and the field was looking rather tasty with the likes of Lucy Rokach, Micky Wernick, Julian Thew and Lawrence Gosney all coming along for the ride.

The structure was good, with 10K starting chips and 45min clock. Don't think I played a hand for about 30mins then managed to double up within the last 15mins of the 1st level with a succession of decent hands getting paid off...

AsKs vs middle set that didn't bet enough on the flop and called too much on the river with a Ts 4s 2d Js board.

Someone who can't lay TT down on a QQRRR board with me holding AQ.

I mean come on!! Level one of a deepstack event with 200BB and I'm getting paid off like this!!

Things didn't slow down, although I managed to get away from Jacks and Kings pretty cheap when it was obvious I was behind. By the end of level 3 i'm on about 28k.

Levels 4 and 5 were really slow, just kept reminding myself to be patient and my patience paid off when I raised on the button with A8 and pick up a call from a mid position limper. A bingo flop of K 8 8 sees matey boy check jam and flip over KJ for a 10k pot. He was pretty disgusted and mildly insulting.... "I'd say nice hand but that's bollox" was the quote i think :)

Very next hand I'm all in vs a short stack with KK vs AJ for another 8k pot. All this keeps me around the 30k mark give or take.

I then get moved to a much tougher table. I've got bracelet winner Lawrence Gosney two to my left and on the other side of the table is a guy from Cumbria who knows Hawko and favourite trick was to re-jam any raise with any two cards. He'd already pulled off this trick successfully with Jack Rag vs AQ for a monster pot and was playing about 70% of hands. I sat quiet for a while taking it all in and dipped to about 23k in chips.

I pick up a big 3 way pot vs a short stack and Cumbria boy with QsTs on a Js 8s X board when I river the required spade. Cumbria boy passes to my bet on the end and I nearly muck my cards forgetting the side pot and the all in shortie...doh!

My mate Barry Neville is railing Gosney after busting out early.. I wave but I don't think he remembered me :o)

I pick another pot with a turned set of 8s vs top pair and finish the day at the end of level 9 on a healthy 50k with ave begin about 34k with 26 players left...9 paid.

Back for day two and in good spirits and waste no time motoring up to about 170k in chips after getting the hump with Cumbria boys rejams and finally making a call with AK that held up vs Jack Rag. I manage to eliminate him a little later with QdTd on a Qs 4d 6d flop... I bet he raises I push and he calls drawing thin to dead with Jd 9d!

I then took a couple of hits including a fairly brutal all in on the turn vs a med-short stack for a 90k pot with me holding J 9 and him J Q on a 9 T 7 .... he called my flop bet and we both shipped it on a nasty 8s turn! Not much I can do there i think.

Sat at the final table with about 120k. Rather worrying that Julian Thew was chip lead with about 200k. We were down to 8 when I made a huge call with QQ. UTG +1 raises to about 10k (blinds were about 1200-2400 I think) get another early pos caller. The next guy jams for about 85k..... I'm in late pos thinkin WTF!! UGT+1 looks none too happy and I think they are both passing. I had a good long dwell and basically can't put him on AA or KK. So AK or TT-QQ... so I've got most of his range crushed. To be honest I put him on JJ. If he did have AK the chance were high that the early raisers had 2 or 3 of his outs.... so I pushed all in.

Every one else passes and he flips AKos ... not ideal but my mood brightens a little when UTG+1 says that he also binned AK. 5 bricks later and I'm chip lead. I'm pretty good at working my way through a final table from a good position and the game plan was to try and get HU and take it from there.... managed to maintain my stack picking off one or two of the short stacks while one other guy hit some monster hands to motor into the chip lead.

I finally get heads up with him and he's got 770,000 to my 150,000. He offers a deal but I refuse :)

I figured out early doors that his HU game was poor. He overbet everything.... so he won lots of small pots and I won the big ones. Once we got about equal in chips he slowed down and I took advantage of the fear and had him down to about 90k when I let him off the hook. I jammed with A8 and he wins with AQ... next hand he makes a tough call with A2 on a Q 2 T A Q board when I jam on the end with a missed flush draw.... silly i know but there was a reason.

This sees him back up to about 370k. I have a think and go back to plan A.... before long he's back down to less than 100k and i make a standard check call to holding J4 to his all in push with KJ on a 6 4 2 flop. No King and I win my first decent sized live MTT :)

Happy Days!

I feel a holiday coming on... plan after that is maybe play the £1.5k WSOPE event.. if I don't make that then the £500 GALA POKER TOUR Liverpool leg is the same weekend with £5k added and all the names at the WSOPE it could hold some value.



On a side note i'm so fked off cash games I'm never playing another one!!!

Lose with AT on a A T T flop!!
Crazy 3 way all in flop
Crack Aces... erm nope
All in PF AA vs 33
KK on a K Q Q flop... can't lose this one...can I?
I'll name that river in one

I've got another 15 of those all within a day or two... obv by this time I'm steaming and tilt it all in with Ace high on this one.... amazingly I'm in front but...

STEAMING..FIND DOG- KICK -and repeat


Still ...Happy Days!! :)

Good Luck,

Jim