I made quite a good start to the Ladbrokes WSOP League, finishing 8th of 441 in leg 1. This paid $320, enough to cover the buy-ins for the remainder of the series and scoring 93 points for our team (The Founder Members)... team total - 93 points!!! C'mon chaps keep your end up! :-)
I had some rather illustrious company at my starting table, in the shape of 2007 WSOP Main Event 5th place finalist, Jon "skalie" Kalmar. Other notables in the field of this $20 freezeout were Paul "actionjack" Jackson and Roy "ROYTHEBOY" Brindley... none of whom made the final table.
On to Sunday then... me and Rich head to Nottingham for the £6.5k guaranteed, £100 freezeout at Dusk Till Dawn. On entry to the cardroom, a glance at the list of entries, on one of many TV screens around the room, reveals two surprises. Firstly, with just 15 mins to go to the start time, there are only 27 players registered and secondly, one of those 27 is Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott! Neither Rich or myself are drawn on Devilfish's table... is that good or bad? I'm not sure.
By the time the tourney starts there are 32 players on 5 (9 seat) tables. This was a massive overlay, £3520 taken (if you include the £10 reg fees), and £6500 guaranteed prize pool. However, since we started with 5 tables and a capacity of 45, then it was clear they were expecting (maybe just hoping for) a reasonable number of late entries. (Note: Late entries and Alternates are allowed for the first hour of the tournament.)
The empty seats did indeed fill and one or two alternates were seated as players were eliminated. Then, with 8 mins remaining in level 2 a quite surprising and, as far as I'm aware, unprecedented thing occurs... the clock is stopped and an announcement is made that there are still 7 alternates waiting and that they are going to open another table to allow them all to play!
What really prompted this decision I guess we'll never know... was it because most of these 7 players were quite 'well in', high profile names or was it perhaps, as many were muttering, due to the still large overlay that the management would have to fund. I suspect it was the former as they did increase the prize pool to £7k. One thing I think is certain, if it had been 7 'nobodys' waiting then there wouldn't have been an extra table opened.
So, the tournament finally re-starts, they had moved one guy from my table and another had picked-up his chips and gone to get his money back, in protest at the goings-on. Two of the 'magnificent seven' fill the empty seats... sat on my right, Simon "Chubby" Nowab, World Heads-Up finalist a couple of years ago and two to my left appeared Paul "actionjack" Jackson. Rich had shrinking violet and GUKPT winner, Barry Neville take up residence on his right, in a seat earlier vacated by pro-player and blonde forum legend, Tom "Red-Dog" McCready.
Nothing much to report in the way of memorable hands, I held my own on that first table and had about 8k (5k starting stack) chips when I was moved to re-balance tables. This was the beginning of my end really, blinds and antes starting to bite, moved to new table with 8 players I had never seen before and a run of really crap cards. About 30 mins later and down to about 4k chips, this table was broken and I move to Rich's starting table (he has since been moved to another), two seats to left of Mr Neville... not going to be much pressure on my big blind then!!
The end came towards the end of level 7 (50 ante and 200/400 blinds), I push my last 3k in with AQ from mid position, only to get called by AK in the BB. I counted 19 people still seated at the three remaining tables, so by my reckoning I was 20th... in the top half, but still far from the money (7 places). By the time I got to the bar, Rich had been there long enough to order a sandwich!
I start to watch Rich eat his sandwich but decide the cash games might be more fun, so leave him to finish in peace.
A new 50p/£1 NL cash table had just been opened and there were three people seated when I got there. I bought in for the max £100 and we were soon joined by another player and the game started five-handed. I don't whether it was me or another player that looked fishy, but almost immediately two players left another table to join us!
What a difference to the tournament... I was still getting crap cards, but the board was hitting me big time. By the time Rich joined in, after finishing his panini and getting one of the valets to put him over her shoulder and burp him, I was up to about £250. I maintained a stack of between £200 and £250 for an hour so before the table dynamic changed completely with the arrival of a local maniac. There was money a plenty available to the patient man with this guy around, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour for this evening (morning!) and cashed out when my stack hit £211, recouping my £110 tournament buy-in with an extra shiny £1 chip left over. :-)
As for online, I'm still playing a few $20 STTs on Full Tilt (yes, discipline and bankroll management right out of the window!), but at the moment it's like trying to climb a sand dune... two steps forward, one back, followed by two steps forward and three back. I'll persevere 'til the end of the month, for a full month's rakeback, and then re-assess.
