Friday, November 07, 2008
UK Poker Open
Couple of things happening this week, first of all I played the 888.com UK Poker Open V in Maidstone. The heat was pretty random but after winning an all-in flip with A8 against KJss on an 863ss flop I was mostly ahead of the game. AA > JJ helped too, as did a truly ludicrous raise/fold by Surinder which I'll probably go into in a Boylesports blog pretty soon. Heads up I had a 3-1 lead which I promptly lost to a flop 5-outer, then I thought I played pretty well and ended up winning the last flip.
The semi-final yesterday was very frustrating. There were no weak spots and a lot of open-raised pots. I ended up playing one hand of poker, in which I was thoroughly owned, and showing down one hand, the mighty J7o which I had shoved with 6BBs. That might sound rash but we were playing 7-15 blinds 6-handed, with an average stack of 8BBs. Just one of those days when everyone else won their first allin, often from behind, but I went 0/1 gg. I think I know what to do about this next time, but that's going to remain a genuine secret, sorry :-)
Funnily enough, the semi from the World Poker Open in April was on TV on Wednesday night as well, and even though it was the exact same structure, there was a lot more play because three players managed to bust out by the middle of level 3. I often say that the amount of "play" in a tournament depends more on how recklessly or cautiously people play than the actual blind structure, and this was a good example. The TV version showed even fewer of my hands than the DVD version I had seen. I think I can see why a lot of my hands don't make the cut ; first of all, I tend to take lines that make things simple on later streets, and secondly I tend to act fairly quickly generally. TV loves big dwell-ups in difficult spots and I just don't tend to be in these spots ! So you'll just have to imagine how I went from 200K to 380K by apparently folding every hand :-).
The semi-final yesterday was very frustrating. There were no weak spots and a lot of open-raised pots. I ended up playing one hand of poker, in which I was thoroughly owned, and showing down one hand, the mighty J7o which I had shoved with 6BBs. That might sound rash but we were playing 7-15 blinds 6-handed, with an average stack of 8BBs. Just one of those days when everyone else won their first allin, often from behind, but I went 0/1 gg. I think I know what to do about this next time, but that's going to remain a genuine secret, sorry :-)
Funnily enough, the semi from the World Poker Open in April was on TV on Wednesday night as well, and even though it was the exact same structure, there was a lot more play because three players managed to bust out by the middle of level 3. I often say that the amount of "play" in a tournament depends more on how recklessly or cautiously people play than the actual blind structure, and this was a good example. The TV version showed even fewer of my hands than the DVD version I had seen. I think I can see why a lot of my hands don't make the cut ; first of all, I tend to take lines that make things simple on later streets, and secondly I tend to act fairly quickly generally. TV loves big dwell-ups in difficult spots and I just don't tend to be in these spots ! So you'll just have to imagine how I went from 200K to 380K by apparently folding every hand :-).
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 10:25 AM 
