Poker is weird. There aren’t many other sports/occupations/hobbies/whatever in life where you can win £3,500 in three days and yet feel as though you lost £36,500 instead.
This weekend was the £750 PKR Live tournament. I qualified on PKR a few weeks ago for about $80 and had been looking forward to it for ages. PKR has been my only site for around 2 years now so it would be good to meet up with a load of people that I play against every day – BrotherMuzone, Wongaman, locodice etc – and there was £40k for the winner, which would just about fit into the ‘life-changing amount’ category.
Anyway, I’ll condense the tourney report quite short so as not to bore my one or two readers (Hi Mum!). I played Day 1B and the first five hours I played like an absolute donkey. Went for a crap Chinese with Sudworth, kickofff, JJBird and the stupidly good Jack Powell before suddenly deciding I actually want to win this tournament and subsequently smashing up the table…with the help of my A-K beating some other poor chap’s A-K too, obviously.
Then I played probably the weirdest hand in my little poker life. The guy on my right, Ryan Lawless (no relation to Xena: Warrior Princess that I know of), is a London circuit regular. Nice guy but he was absolutely battered and basically declaring that he was going to bluff me ASAP. I think it all stemmed from when he decided, in a moment of lunacy, to 4-bet/fold JACKS (!) vs me. If you’re reading Ryan, just call next time.
Anyway, some guy raises, Lawless flatted in the small blind and I made it 10k in the big blind with K-Jo. Original raiser folds and Lawless now ships it for about 55k more (or about 50 big blinds). Unfortunately I didn’t snap-call but I just didn’t see how he ever had a big hand here so I made the Superman call eventually and held vs his Q-T to get big chips going into Day 2. Woohoo.
Anyway, I’ll condense the tourney report quite short so as not to bore my one or two readers (Hi Mum!). I played Day 1B and the first five hours I played like an absolute donkey. Went for a crap Chinese with Sudworth, kickofff, JJBird and the stupidly good Jack Powell before suddenly deciding I actually want to win this tournament and subsequently smashing up the table…with the help of my A-K beating some other poor chap’s A-K too, obviously.
Then I played probably the weirdest hand in my little poker life. The guy on my right, Ryan Lawless (no relation to Xena: Warrior Princess that I know of), is a London circuit regular. Nice guy but he was absolutely battered and basically declaring that he was going to bluff me ASAP. I think it all stemmed from when he decided, in a moment of lunacy, to 4-bet/fold JACKS (!) vs me. If you’re reading Ryan, just call next time.
Anyway, some guy raises, Lawless flatted in the small blind and I made it 10k in the big blind with K-Jo. Original raiser folds and Lawless now ships it for about 55k more (or about 50 big blinds). Unfortunately I didn’t snap-call but I just didn’t see how he ever had a big hand here so I made the Superman call eventually and held vs his Q-T to get big chips going into Day 2. Woohoo.
Day 2 was painful. I got the worst table draw in the world out of position vs Craig McCorkell (genius), Mark ‘Shafty’ Stuart, Jack Powell and some good Dutch guy. So in order to win a pot I had to pick up AA vs AK (cheers) or run some suicidal bluffs, all of which somehow got through. I played pretty good though, didn’t really make any mistakes and survived through an arduous two-hour bubble period to make the cash, with Shafty keeping ‘Team PokerPlayer’ alive too. We ended the day with 14 players left and I was in 7th place.
The morning of the final was strange. Normally, I never get nervous before playing poker or if I’m running a huge bluff or whatever. It’s basically just a game so as long you’re making the right decisions it doesn’t matter what the outcome is etc. But I woke up feeling massively depressed that I didn’t have chips and that I’d be letting myself down if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity now that I’d played so well – and got lucky enough too – to get to this spot. I still had about 19BBs but just had this terrible feeling it would all go wrong. Then I got to the tube here in Chiswick and had to wait nearly 20 bloody minutes for a train, meaning that my depression/nerves transformed into anger and stress that I wouldn’t get there in time. Thankfully, after a massive sprint from Leicester Square I rolled in bang on time though, just slightly more sweaty than planned.
I shouldn’t have been so worried about blowing up. I played pretty great and nearly doubled my stack without showdown before the final table. It looked like I was going to go on a massive rush but no, no the final table was an actual disaster. Every time I bluffed I got jammed on and every time I had a monster I just stole the blinds.
I knew I’d be out shortly when I reshoved 14BBs on eventual winner Rob Angood (with J-J) and he said ‘I think I’m going to give you a spin son’ before making a hideously misjudged call with K-T suited. King on the flop and I’m relegated to the downstairs sofa to sulk like a diva for five minutes. What does ‘I’m going to give you a spin’ mean anyway!?!? Ridiculous phrase. If anyone ever hears me say that out loud please feel free to slap me.
So that was my weekend. £3,400 isn’t bad for a few day’s work obviously but that isn’t how the human mind works. Whereas I could have had a deposit for a house all I now have is a good sum of money. Hopefully this doesn’t come off as arrogant or nonchalant about money but it’s just honestly how poker tournaments can sometimes make you feel. Still, that’s why we play. There is nothing more exciting or exhilarating as the final stages of a tournament when the stakes are so high. Poker is awesome.
10mins after my KO. Not happy. Plus, she makes me look like a midget.
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