Broadway Casino, £1,000 Main Event
February 21, 2009 by trickyrock
Filed under Latest News
Today was alot of fun at the Broadway. I saw alot of friends for the first time in weeks, had some good banter, and enjoyed the familiar friendly faces of the UK circuit.
Though fiercely contested, the poker left a few more openings to exploit than those ice-cold Scandies would allow in the EPT. Things had started off well to, at least from a decisions point of view. I managed to pass a rivered flush, after my 43 of clubs had made an unwelcome “improvement” to a flush after turning the nut straight on K652. Dave Penly showed the nut flush, and a slight dip to the stack was made up for by a boost to the confidence.
Soon after, I passed queens without putting a chip in on the J104 flop to Nicky Evans, who was good enough to show me a set of tens. In a bizarre few hours of massive passes, I then made the one big mistake of the day. I passed A2 on a 543J10 board to Trevor Reardon’s clever line which could only be a straight. He showed a boldly played 6d4d.
It was a blow, but I was happy with things apart from that. Just inside the sixth level, I found queens to James Mitchell’s early position 1,050 open. I knew the right play was to make the over-push for 8.1k to represent weakness, and he made the call with ace-jack.
It was for a 16k+ stack, and I could feel the recent run of all-ins groan at the pit of my stomach. The first two cards came king, queen, and it just felt an inevitability….
The blow was softened, the ten came on the flop. I’ve got used to the crushing disappointment of these moments, but it doesn’t make them any easier. Somewhere in the dizziness of disbelief, I managed to shake James’ hand and say “good luck,” and this is the important thing to me.
When your hold body feels knocked out with disappointment, it’s difficult to keep your chin up. But so important. The last six all-ins in circuit tournaments, spanning Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Dublin, now read (my hand first) KJ vs 43, AQ vs K8, AK vs QQ, KK vs AQ, JJ vs 1010, QQ vs AJ. It would have been nice to win one.
I don’t want to use this blog to plea, but if I am allowed just one, it would be this. Never play this game for any reason other than enjoyment. Ask yourself “can I still be happy even after a really unlucky run?” If the answer is no, or financially it would be a blow, find something else to enjoy your free time. Enjoy a great hobby, and play cards with your mates for pennies.
I’ve always had it as my sole aim to enjoy the game, and all but a few minutes of today were alot of fun. It’s easy to be positive, and I can only think that this brutal run, that is beginning to mirror last year, is happening for a reason. It reinforces these principles, and only makes me only more determined to try to get every decision right. If I had found the right call against Trevor Reardon, I would never have had to ship with queens, and never had to lean on the shoulder of the cruel poker gods.
So chin up, try to learn lessons from the mistake, and get ready to enjoy the next event.
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“I found queens to James Mitchell’s early position 1,050 open”
The fact that it was James who had opened should have been reason enough for you to peel off the flop. There seems to be a high number of players on the circut who cant lay a hand down – at any price, and James is one of these – I had 3 hours of James and his antics at DTD’s last £300 and I sat wandering how someone so young could play such bad poker and still afford to keep playing the circut. He eventually knocked himself out when he squeezed on the bb with KJo to an utg raise and a re-raise by me mid position with KK.
I to like you Stu am going through a dry run at the moment when all my coinflips are going to my oppo’s bad calls.
“When your hold body feels knocked out with disappointment, it’s difficult to keep your chin up. But so important. The last six all-ins in circuit tournaments, spanning Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Dublin, now read (my hand first) KJ vs 43, AQ vs K8, AK vs QQ, KK vs AQ, JJ vs 1010, QQ vs AJ. It would have been nice to win one”***** apart from the Ak v QQ you were in front every time which is always the best shape to be in and you can only get “unlucky”, your very rarely going to get lucky as you very rarely stick your chips in when your behind.
I admire the spirit in which you play the game and your positive outlook – I wish I was as gracious in defeat as you are, I look forward to seeing you across the felt in a braclet event heads up, very soon.
Hey Steve,
Good to hear from you. Yeah, it’s tough when all the cards just seem to go against you!
The attitude I take to tournament poker is that most of the time is doesn’t matter how you play; you will either get unlucky, or not quite lucky enough to get towards that lucrative top 10% of the field. However, you have to believe each time that this will be the lucky day, and make sure your game is on to take advanatge on that crucial day. When I reflect back, my only real disappointment of the last year was that final day in the London GUKPT. Things did go pretty well that day; had I done a couple of things differently, I might have been able to take full advantage of the day.
Here’s to finishing heads up again soon mate. (What a shame the Gala Poker Tour is no more by the way!) I think poker is character building in a number of ways, not least having to deal with disappointment alot of the time. A tournament ends this way far more often than it ends with happiness, and so I find it really important to enjoy the experience every time.
What are your plans for Walsall mate? Unfortunately, things are a bit busy this week, so I’m think I’m just going to play Broadway £100 rebuy on Sunday, maybe the Walsall £200 on Monday, and then the main event on the Friday. Good luck with your events. They say luck balances out; now is time for us both to win six back-to-back all-ins.
lol, i really do hope so mate.
Sunday night at Broadway is a £100 freeze out I think mate cause the missus says that she’s going to play it.
I am down at Walsall all week apart from the PL Omaha on the wednesday night and I’m playing the main event on day 1b same as you mate so see you there.
Hey Steve,
You’re right, Broadway is a freezeout, they need to work on their advertising! Walsall it is then.
See you on Friday mate, good luck.
I’m not quite sure why Steve Holden has invented a hand to make me look bad, but if anyone wants to see what actually happened here is a link to the Blonde updates.
http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=40047.105 (2nd post down)
The funny thing is Steve manages to get it in in a worse spot than KJo vs KK.