OMG - Can't believe it's been so long since I last posted anything on here..... As you know I have peaks and troughs of enthusiasm for poker and right now I'm peaking!
I recently managed to win a poker experience weekend with Ladbrokes where I had a great time, learned a lot and meet some lovely people. My road to the Poker Experience weekend started with a satellite which led to a monthly final. Only one other enetered the satellite and after 5 re-buys (only one from me), my opponent gave in graciously and there I was in the monthly final.
There were 26 people in this final which was $80 with a half price re-buy/add-on. It was the tightest tourney I've ever played and really showed that everyone wanted to win their place. I had more than average chips at the break and added on because the rest of the table were.
I managed to lose with aces all-in to AKo which almost put me on tilt till a realised the next hand was KK which then tied with someone else's KK.... typical!
So after being short stacked for so long I went on a spree and moved onto the final table. The bubble play for the prize seemed to go on for ages before I won with a straight when another player slow played their QQ.
So off to the Hilton, Canary Wharf, I went and what a great weekend. Sessions of training interspersed with open handed play and tourneys. Casper Berry and Jon Kalmar were there too.
I got wiped out in the first tourney when I over-valued AQs but made up for it by coming 4th in the Saturday tourney to win a bottle of champagne! In the Sunday tag-team tourney I teamed up with Ray "Razork8" Kerney and we came 4th out of 26 eventually being blinded out and pushing only to find that we were dominated. I must take note of this as I did it again yesterday at the casino.
Casino: 20/11/08:
What a result. Both myself and Claire made it onto the final table. Claire was about 7th in chips and I was 9th. I didn't really wake up with many hands and ended up going all-in with A8o as with two callers and one all-in, with a very low M, there were a lot of chips on offer. It was borderline though as I didn't feel that it would be quite good enough. When my opponent turned over A9o I knew my time had come.
Claire turned into a cardrack as she got Kings when another player had Queens and then took out one of the big stack with Aces when he had Kings. Claire always say Ladbrokes is fixed when this happens so it's good for her to see that it also happens live.
She went on catching cards and building up chips and then they were in the final three. She blew her chances of winning just before heads up when the other big stack went all-in to isloate the small stack and Claire read him as being weak and called with ATs. She lost around 50k in that hand and the tourney ended a few hands later when the winner moved in on a flush draw and Claire had an open ended straight draw but didn't realise that half her outs were really there as the completed his flush draw. There wasn't any tension as a heart appeared on the turn but any sadness that Claire had soon disappeared when she realised that the prize for 2nd place was £340....... !!!!!!
Claire has now amassed £635 (£340, £160, £135) from the Casino. I'm miles behind with £290 (£210, £50, £30). Maybe we should have a 50/50 agreement?
