3 Degenerates In A Car To Coventry

As many of you know I'm recently back from playing the £550 main event of the Pokerstars UKIPT Coventry Event. I drove down with the Wu and my brother Blair. We left Dundee early hours of Thursday morning and didn't hit any traffic until just before the M6toll, the journey was fine, listened to pokercast episodes and some good music. Blair and Colin had some power naps, and I think I only fell asleep at the wheel once or twice.

We arrived at our hotel in Coventry shattered, thankfully they got our room ready and let us check in early. I think sprawling out on the leather couches near reception somehow speeds up hotel staff! :D

The hotel was really good for the money, £44 or something for the room. Nice and clean, great shower/bathroom, TV etc. Also there was a big pool, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi etc. We were told it was £5 for duration of the stay for unlimited use, but it turned out to be free when we got there! Was great to unwind and relax for a few days.

Blair and Colin were playing later that day which was Thursday Day 1a, unfortunately Colin bust out shortly after the dinner break. His QQ screwed by AK, he was also in a 60k pot previously where his AA vs AK ended in a chop with both players making broadway! So he does run like us sometimes :P

Blair made Day 2 on the Saturday, which was a good showing in his first really big deepstacked tourney.

I played Day 1B on the Friday, I spent most of Thursday sleeping, eating and sitting around the hotel (just like back at home!)

I built my stack up without showing down a hand for maybe 3 levels, i had 38k, There are two hands I am going to talk about, first one is so................

Blinds 150-300 with an ante of 25, under the gun raiser makes it 1100, he gets one caller. Im on the button with AK, guy before me makes it 3200. My play in my opinion and giving my thought process was muck or raise, I don't like to muck AK in this spot, so I raise. I make it 6400 to go. My thought process is initial raiser had a big stack 80k+ and has shown a wide range, he got one caller, so I'm thinking the guy that has re-raised before me could have anything from 88 through to AK.

So I've made it 6400, and it goes back to the initial raiser, 5 seconds of thought and he announces "All in" (with 3 players including me the 4-better! to go after him) He has like 80k, so it is an overbet to say the least!! :D

Original caller folds, and the original 3-better folds. I know I'm folding my AK here, I still have 33k left after making it 6400 (BLINDS ARE ONLY 150-300 REMEMBER :D)

So i say "Show if i fold ?" and he says "maybe" So i say, "well I fold anyway, nice bet!"

He shows QQ and is happy with his play and says "i have the hand, i don't want to see a flop"

I say to the guy next to me "I'd be more worried about someone snapping me with aces or kings"

That was the last hand before the break and 2 guys came up to me saying "how could he play QQ like that etc, its insane, he only gets snapped if crushed, 3 players to act etc"

In summation, although the buy in is £550, there are a lot of qualifiers etc. Some of the play for a deepstack game was bad! And shows that there is actually value in these games, A LOT OF VALUE IN THEM.

So my bust out hand..............

The QQ donk makes it 1100 with blinds now at 200-400 with 50 ante. He gets two callers, I'm in the small blind with QJ and so i call the 900. BB calls and flop comes 10-9-2 (two clubs). The online reporting of the hand says it was checked around, I really can't remember in the haze, but I thought original raiser c-bets the flop. But it's kind of irrelevant!!!!

Anyway, the turn brings King of Spades, giving me the nut straight. I lead out 2k into like 6.5-7k. Big Blind folds, original raiser min raises to 4k. Other two fold.

Pot is now like 10-11k. The guy is a donk, and i figure, I'm getting paid here by a set, two pair, or even the nut flush draw, and if he is drawing, then he is gonna pay for it.........

So rather than make it 9k or something, i do a Hollywood and shove for my last 19k more. He insta calls me..............

I figure it's a chop and he has QJ, because literally NO THOUGHT!

Carla Goddard who does the pokerstars reporting says "Chop pot? both got queen jack???"

I say "I've got the nuts up to now!"

The guys face looks white and probably didn't even see the straight, he had a set of 10s! He was probably so wrapped up in that!

Pot is around 52-54k,...........................RIVER pairs the board, with a 9!

Pretty sick, by no means a really bad beat, I'm only 77% going to the river :P. Just feel it a little more, when it's a £500 buy in game, you have drove down from Dundee and the average at the time was only 24k! and first place in the tourney is £47k :P etc :D

So that was me out...........

Blair returned for day 2 with 130+ players, there were 45 places paid 45th paying £850, and Blair bust out 52nd when he had to shove AJ short stacked and someone woke up with AQ.

I wound him up the whole drive back about playing 14hrs to shove that shit! But it was a friendly needle, and he played well and outlasted the Wu and me, and did good, next time! ;)

We took a leisurely drive home, we stopped off a few times and randomly decided to stop off in Blackpool because we were in the mood of fish and chips! We had some fresh oysters, then found a wee sit in chipper, had fish and chips, mushy peas etc and life was good again :D

The trip was such good fun, we had great laughs in the hotel mucking about. I scared Blair twice, and I'm talking big frights! But I wont embarrass him here :P Safe to say, my planning and lengths I go to for scaring people in a hotel straight out of the shining, ARE ADVANCED :D!

None of us showed anywhere near a profit on the trip and our bankrolls showed a minus, but speaking for myself, Colin and Blair, our "liferolls" showed a positive. It was a great trip, lots of laughs and good times, and at the end of the day, your liferoll is more important than your bankroll ;)

REMEMBER THAT ;)

Good Luck

Barry xxx

Easter Festival and a future special guest :D

I've not blogged in over a month, been busy playing poker and spending time on other stuff in my life!

Some updates....I came back from vegas with a nice addition to the bankroll, I continued to do well...highlights included 4 way deal in the last monthly £100 game (good for £700) and I got super lucky against LW and a random guy in a £500 pot in a cash game. Long story short, I have KK vs LW's AA and random guys JJ, all in pre. I bink a King on the turn and scoop. Stevie Mc was dealing, I gave him a lift home (for free :P) for his good dealing!

Things turned a bit sour after this, some stuff outside of poker put me a bit on life tilt and it seemed to spookilly slip into my results. I wasn't playing badly, and wasn't tilting......but a downswing seemed to correlate perfectly with other shit that was happening. As a result, I let Dr Chalmers out of the other side of my brain and let him loose. He preceded to blow too much money on the Cheltenham festival (Kauto star, I hope you are dog food and glue by now!)

I also experienced some garbage in cash games, flush against flush, top two crushed by gutterball turn, and two outered on the river.

Top two against bottom set in a tourney also, forgot about that one......NH Don ;) xx

I managed to stop the rot and took a break.......

I played all the Easter tournaments..quick recap..........

£200 Main event......Played my ass off, starting stack 15k, i was never above 23k for the entire tourney, 57 runners, and I somehow managed to get to 15th, I went out when I got it all in with two 10's against Cush's QQ (Cush went onto chop the tourney as one of the bigger money winners and got £2.5k, gg and well played)

£100 Event..... Again, I grinded this tournament, I can honestly say I have never played a short stack as well as I did in the £200 game and the £100 game. I just looked for good spots to make a move in, I was extremely patient. Although I was usually working with a stack of around 12-15bb for most of the levels, I never felt under pressure or forced to make a move.

I made the final table and went in as one of (if not the shortest stack, with like 24k) I then went on a tear up and ran good, my 9-10 beating 99, picked up QQ and then started to pick up blinds with timed shoves.

I managed to get my 24k up to around 140k in chips.........Then carnage!

Blinds 3k-6k, 6 handed, it is folded to me on the button, I pick up AK, i make it 15k to go, sb (aggressive player :P) goes all in pretty much instantly. Back to me and I instacall, he has A3, so I'm 76% :D..........................

Flop, 2........5.........4, and I'm dead to 3 outs for a chop! Brick,,,,and Brick......

I have him covered just, pot was like $220k+ was around half the chips in play, and was effectively the tournament.

I had around 30k left......I managed to grind that up and take out K-Walls AA shove on the button to my BB, i called with Q10 (as i had him covered and 5th paid £370) i hit a straight.

The hand i went out on was also sick, i limp sb with 24diamonds against Jamie (jambizzle-mynizzle-ishoveA3izzle-igettheremynizzle-coziflop-the-wheelizzle-u-gezzile??) He checks, flop 4-7-4. I think B.I.N.G.O, B.I.N.G.O his name is Bobby BINGO......turn is a 6. We get it all in and he has J4.....Goodnight Vienna and GingerToys out in 5th.............

£50 game was a non event, I ship in top pair (Ace) against a habitual gala ban'ee (not GSA or Drummy!) He calls with middle pair J and 9 kicker. He rivers a 9 and im out.

Great games and great structures, credit goes to the gala staff etc, Mr Myles obviously cares about poker (and it shows) Also, Fidel Samstro seems to be enjoying the role of cardroom supervisor, think both of them can make it still be number 1 for poker in Dundee. (If Mr Myles reads this, please feel free to put a few thousand fortune points on my card, a brothers gotta eat :P)

So that was then and this is now................................

I'm off to Coventry for the main event of the UKIPT sponsored by Pokerstars, I was only going to be playing the side events, but have decided to sell % shares in myself so I can play the £550 main event with the orient express Colin WU and my brother Blair (who qualified on pokerstars) Thanks to the guys who bought a stake in me, I can only promise to play well and hope to go deep. I would like nothing better than to come home handing out packets of cash ;)

I will be tweeting updates (see my twitter feed at side of this blog @ http://gingertoys.blogspot.com or on the http://www.pokerindundee.com site where my twitter feed is also shown, or find me on twitter GINGERTOYS and add me there!!.............Or just leave it and ask me how I did next time you see me :D

Now for a special announcement, Martin @ pokerindundee has been wanting to get the Wu on board with twitter feeds for when he plays tourneys etc, but this isn't an option just now..........................SO......................................................

Since I have some time on my hands, and Colin is fast building a reputation as a great poker player, I am going to do a full interview with Haito "Colin" Wu :D

I am going to sit down with the Wu, and go into lots, u name it, and it will be discussed :D

Colin is a good friend, but I'm going to try and be like the Paxman of poker :P I'll ask him lots of in depth questions. Effectively, I will act as the mediator to stream colins thoughts and views on poker to the Dundee poker community :D

Colin has a lot he wants to share and say, but with English not being his first language,,,he doesn't want to sit doing a blog for pokerindundee.com!

So I suggested this way, I interview him and then type it all out and blog it.

I will probably do it in a few parts, because One I'm Lazy! and two ! I want to do it right :D

I want to treat it like a magazine interview, and for someone with his record in GUKPT's, GCBPT and other side events and cash games, (FOR THE NUMBER HE HAS PLAYED, in fact FOR ANYONE TO HAVE THIS RECENT RECORD) I can't believe he is not sponsored/backed YET.

I will look do sit down with him sometime when we get back from Coventry :D

Colin is a busy dad and I like to sleep past 3pm, so we will have to work out a gap in our schedules :D

BUT I WILL GET THIS DONE, I'm sure everyone can learn something from him, and even for my own poker education, it will be worth it.

Good Luck us in Coventry.

And good luck to anyone who reads this.

Barry xxx