Voy Por Ustedes

Manchester United's hilarious defeat to Portsmouth was only the start of a corking series of results. Chelsea losing to Barnsley?? Barnsley tha' knooows! How in the wide wide world of sports did that happen? Grand.

Then of course by jove I went and won the £50 freeze-out at DTD. I said I was due a performance now didn't I, hmm? I did warn you. Yes, ok, so I did take a book with me in case I busted out early, but that was just necessary prudence to keep me away from the cash tables.

So a quick report then and why not:

Actually there's not much to tell. I'd have had to give myself a thorough repremanding not to have gone deep in this tourny. I was dealt Aces six times for the sake of the lord. Cracked only once and even then I was compensated with a juicy side-pot.

The plan was to play Dan Harrington style. Everyone plays too fast and too aggressively in these games. Poker has come full circle, a revolution if you will out of the evolution of Scandanavian ballistic poker strategies. Dan was in, then he was out, now he's in again.

I was able to mooch about and wait for hands, with the odd sneaky steal here and there, safe in the knowledge that the hyper-aggressive non-shavers yet players would pay me off handsomely when they came. The predator masquerading as a donkey as I explained in a previous post. Er..and that's it really, as ABC as you're ever likely to see.

Couple of significant hands:

Significant hand #1

Blinds 100/200

I raise to 600 utg +1. Mateyboy 1 flat calls, folded round to a second mateyboy on the bytton who goes all in for 8,000! I call. Matey boy 1 folds what he later claimed was Ace-Jack.

Mateyboy 2 shows A-K hearts, slightly over played wouldn't you say Dan? My Queens hold up anyway, but the flop was a Jack-tastic J-J-10. Had mateyboy 2 not launched his entire tournament into the middle I'd have probably lost most if not all of my stack to matey boy 1's Ace-Jack. Phew!

Significant hand # 2

Final table, blinds 5000/10,000/1,000 antes.

Three handed. I'm on the big blind. Button raises to 30,000. Small blind folds. I have 10d 9c. I decide to have a bash at a stop and go and in the words of Barry Norman, why not? I call. Flop comes down a tad scary Qs-As-xc.

I go all-in for 110,000. Button who is chip leader at this point with about 180,000 goes into the tank and finally decides to call with a flush draw; Ks-9s. Turn card is the 10 hearts. I hit my two-outer! Woot. River a blank and I take possession of the chip-lead.

I felt rather guilty hitting this two outer, but in retrospect I'm wondering if his call was not a tad loose, people; 110,000 of your remaining 180,000 on a draw? Not sure he was pot-committed, in fact I'm still not entirely convinced there is such a thing in tournament NLHE apart from the most extreme cases. Hey-ho.

Significant hand # 3

Heads-up. Blinds 8,000/16,000/1,500 antes.

Me small blind Ah-8h. Flat call see. Sneaky. Sort of. Matey boy raises to 40,000. Me all in...called. Ks-9s. Blank board and I win, hoorah!

I did actually offer up a deal when we were five handed, but the matey boy I eventually beat heads-up decided he wanted play it out. Another significant decision. So I won the tourney and scooped the entire first prize. Also slightly fortunate was a DTD policy of no deals at bubble time. Prize structure was paying 12 places with 10th, 11th and 12th each receiving £91.

Down to 13 players I suggested we scrape £91 off the 1st prize to give to the bubbler, which as it turned out I would have paid for. No such deals allowed though and in hindsight, quite right too.