Two Plus Two Newer Archives - ***uNL Microbrew Thread*** NOV 2007 (ot)

So,

Went to my weekly uni poker tourney yesterday, turns out that this was the one which was sponsored by the UPL (university poker league), it was £5 buy in and the UPL doubled the prize pool and first 2 won a seat in the 4 nations final in February. 1500 starting stacks, 20 minute levels.

Prize structure:
1st: £210 + seat in the 4 nations final
2nd: £140 + seat in the 4 nations final
3rd: £75
4th: £50
5th: £25
6th: £10
7th: Bad beat hoodie

I start off fairly well, play nice and tight for the first hour and manage to double my chip stack through a few shortstacks, ending up with about 3000 chips after the first hour. Then I go really card dead and don't play a hand for 2 hours (not one!) but luckily people are busting out so fast that the tables keep on breaking up and I didn't have to post a blind for and hour and a half because I kept on getting moved to a different table.

After 3 hours we are down to the last 30 (51 players to start) and I have 3.5BBs so its push/fold mode. I get dealt 99, AQ and 55 in a row and manage to steal the blinds with all of them giving me about 7BBs, I then get it AI with a shortie Ak vs A5 and now have about 10BBs.

Down to the final 2 tables and I am back to playing mega tight, the 2 players to my left have about the same in chips as me but are very unpredictable so I am not stealing the blinds unless I have a hand.

Blinds are getting really high now and about half the players have less than 4BBs and are dropping pretty fast, and after about 40 mins we are on the final table.

I draw button for the first hand of the final table, the blinds are 500/1000 and I have about 12BBs. I play very tight and dont get involved in many hands, a shortie goes out 9th and its now down to 8 players. A few hands later the big stack gets it AI on the flop vs 2 shorties with a flopped set of aces and bang, we are in the money!

Keep on playing tight as now people are in the money they don't seem to bothered about busting out and I start to think that I might actually have a shot at winning this, so keep my head, play my good hands and the big stack at the table manages to bust a couple more players.

We get down to 3 players, the blinds are 1000/2000, I have about 8BBs, the player to my left has about 6BBs and the 3rd player has about 20BBs, this was the most difficult part to play, 3 handed, I was very tight from the SB as the player to my left was really unpredictable and was looking for a spot to get it AI, so I was looking for high card value to get it AI vs him. I managed to steal the blinds with JT, and a couple of hands later I shove from the SB with QJ and the BB calls with A9 and I hit a Q.

Down to heads up and the blind levels are now 10 mins as we are running out of time, my opponent has me covered, its about 15BBs to 20BBs. He has been the big stack for a long time but I don't rate him as a very good player and I am confident that I can outplay him. He often limped when he was the SB and I would raise the BB with any high cards making him fold. I get dealt AT, AJ, AQ and each time he folds to my raise or re-raise, but he is clearly loosing respect for my raises. The only flop we see is where he flat calls my KT raise from the BB with K7 and its checked down to the river.

I am now ahead of him in chips, get K9 in the SB/BTN make it 3BBs to go, he shoves over the top and I decide to fold, putting him about 2BBs ahead in chips.

It is announced that there are only 3 hands to go as we are out of time and that after that the prize would be split, this was annoying for me because I felt I had a good edge here, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Very next hand, I am in the SB/BTN with AhKh, make it 3BBs to go praying he will shove over me. I know he was not really respecting my raises and knew that I would fold a lot of hands to a shove. He thinks for ages and shoves with As5c, I call (obviously).

WOW, not sure what he put me on but I am 75% ahead here, we both stand up, about 20 people in the room all crowding round.... flop is x5x and I cant hit a K on the turn or the river and he takes 1st place. SICK!

Feeling a bit like someone just stamped on my head, really gutted that I couldn't take first place as it would have been my first MTT win ever, but luckily the difference between 1st and 2nd was only £70 and we both got seats into the 4 nations final.

So next February I will be off to Nottingham to play in the 4 nations final which has a $50,000 guaranteed prize pool and top 2 get full packages into the EPT. Looks like I am going to have to learn how to play MTTs properly...

Thanks for listening

Oh, and also, they filmed the whole thing and interviewed me at the end. Will post the link when it is up.

Edit: tl;dr ---- Went to uni weekly tourney, sponsored by UPL, double prize + 2 seats to 4 nations final, play well, get heads up, loose AK to A5 AI preflop, want to cry, going to Nottingham in Feb to play in 4 nations.