Goodnight Vienna, Good Morning London
I haven’t had a minute to update recently after a busy week of bits of work, sandwiched between a trip to Vienna and a (brief!) trip to London for the GUKPT leg at the Vic. It was a couple of trips I enjoyed alot in the company of Jon Eames in Austria and my brother in London, and culminated in a 9th place finish in the 750 Euro side event in Vienna.
Though hardly a financial upswing, I have never cared at all about money in live poker, and so it was nice to play some decent stuff at times, and have a good exciting run in the one successful event. The Main Event started in spectacular fashion, as on the second hand I suffered yet another set under set encounter, bizarrely now the third in the first eight minutes of a major tournament! I was fortunate that it left me with 10,000 chips of the 20,000 starting stack, and I stayed in the tournament for a long time trying to grind back upwards. The tournament would hinge on two hands, one where an opponent made a big bluff and another on which he held the nut full house. I did the right thing, as I called one and passed to the other. It was just a shame that I got the order wrong, and soon after I was outside in the Austrian snow.
The side event was pleasing, but continues what is becoming a bizarre run of anti-climaxes at final tables. It prompted me to trace back through my last few final tables, and what I found was pretty wierd.
In September 2007, I had enjoyed a good run at my local casino on the final table, and would take an average stack to the final table of the Broadway’s Main Event. My parents and a couple of mates made the short dash in for what looked like being an exciting final table, and on the second hand I picked up kings in late position…..
I knew I would not be believed, and after a raising war with Julian Thew, I got my 200,000 stack in against his ace-queen. The board ran out a painful J4352, and I was gone. Little did I know that it would begin a succession of final table stumbles. I have looked back through the last seven, and realised that each time I had almost exactly the average stack, either a little less or little more. This is bizarre in itself, but the following run even more so:
Broadway, September 2007- 9th of 9
Paris, December 2007- 7th of 9
Luton, August 2008- 8th of 9
Star City, November 2008- 8th of 9
GUKPT Final, Novmeber 2008- 5th of 9 (the best of a sorry bunch, but memorbale for the fact I had the chip lead 5-way!)
Paris, January 2008- 8th of 9
Vienna, March 2009- 9th of 9
Everyone knows that poker is all about performing on the big occassion. Well, this is the poker equivalent of running the marathon and tripping over my shoe lace yards from the finish. It’s very interesting to think what is behind this anti-climatic shambles, as it is difficult to point my finger at anything definite.
Anyway, I’ve been really enjoying the game recently, but look forward to both a couple of weeks back home, but also one of the highlights of the poker year that comes at the end of it. Next stop, the Irish Open in Dublin.
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March 31st, 2009 at 12:20 am
Nothing wrong with sticking your chips in when your ahead - like you did with our brief encounter and like you have done on most of your final tables, you just need that little bit of luck to swing your way for once and I’m sure it will come soon mate, your patience will pay off. good luck in Ireland Stu.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Hey Steve,
Good to hear from you mate. I need to storm through a final table, like you did that day!
I was trying to remember, did you knock everyone out? I might have got one, but I think otherwise you took every single scalp!
Where is next for you mate? Are you considering the trip to Ireland?
Good luck mate,
Stuart
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Hey Stu,
Another good read, though i find myself saying the same thing
The dry run has gotta end soon, right?
Did you ever manage to come up with a way of tracking your equity in all in situations - I remember you were thinking about it before the end of last year.
Cant wait for ireland! Spoken to a couple more people today who are coming - Trickett and Paul Gourlay - should be a good english contingent!
What do u reckon for the thursday night? We could head out if people are up for it, or equally could play the super satellite - would be massive value.
Tom
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Hey Numpty,
Good to hear from you. I can’t wait for Ireland, yeah it will be a really good lot from England. So, Thursday night, let’s do a night out. Anyone else that is there, meet in the hotel bar 9 or 10ish!
See you soon,
Stu
April 4th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
wow, I see you have your own poker site Sturat, good for you!!