I found out James Key's was having a bit of a celebration night out in Notts on the Friday night which was day1a so playing 1b was the obvious choice. So drove down Friday afternoon, checked in at the hotel then headed to DTD to start the fun and games. Greekstein was the organiser, and we all had a table at hooters booked to start the night, incredible idea! Iv never been but it was absolutely hilarious and very American. The portions were ridiculously big, ordered nacho's with steak for starter with Jamie and it was the biggest starter iv seen ever, and it wasn't even a sharing one! Anyway we finish there and head over to picture and piano, and Jamie gets a call from Perrins and Woodcock and finds out all of their laptops have been stolen from their room at the Crowne Plaza, with no signs of forced entry which is obv really suspicious and apparently the police weren't very helpful so that ruined the night/weekend for them and they all went home :(. Didn't go too crazy after that and woke up in good time for Day1b.
So on to the main event and there really isn't too much to say really. I got to DTD feeling really really good, felt like i was super focused and was ready to tear it up. Unfortunately it didn't go to plan at all, for most of the day i was up and down.. well i say up and down it was mostly down then back to starting stack, sigh. Felt like i played well besides one river call which I'm unhappy about. Still a bit tilted about the hand actually. But besides that i don't think i could have done too much different, always seemed to have the second best hand. The last two hours before i busted were very long and frustrating, i put it on twitter but it really was a long and painful death. I managed to maintain a 7bb-12bb stack for well over two hours some how just picking up the blinds every orbit and never getting called. Then finally busted JT<A4. Ah well. I'd been on redbull all day but was still quite tired but Raz, who used to work for Stars was having a leaving do and i was forced to go out. The night started with lots of tequila's so of course.. got quite messy. I didn't know too many of the people who were out but got to know some of the blackbelt guys Kevin Williams and Jamie Burland, which was pretty cool.
Luckily the £1500 highroller event didn't start until 5pm so lots of recovery time! I decided to miss out playing online to play this event because a lot of my friends were playing and there was still a lot of value so i thought it would be fun. The structure for this tournament was INSANELY SICK, there was only 80 runners but it was very long tournament. Day1 went really well, a lot of fun tables i actually ran really well with the table draws on day1, and people kept losing their minds against me, and i finished day1 with around 150k which was top 2-3 with about 24 left. It was a long day though, we didn't finish until 5am. So went straight back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep. Then woke up at midday went for a power Chiquitos with Eames and then back to day2. It was shaping up to be an epic final table, with Eames. Rutter, Channing and Devilfish all still in. Lost some frustrating hands at the start of day with overpairs getting cracked twice by the same player, but then did get lucky after i flatted a raise with KQ and a young guy shipped it in behind and i called it off and got there vs his AQ. Felt like i was in the zone and good players were making big mistakes against me. Channing, Eames and Rutter all busted with two tables left. But Devilfish was still in, with a lot of chips. There was also a young polish guy who was playing really really well and David Doherty. All three made the final table but i ran well with the seat draw and had position on all three and tight players to my left it was pretty perfect tbh.
Went into the final table at about midnight with 300kish Devilfish and the polish guy ( Przemek , i won't even try to pronounce it) both had similar stacks and everyone else was relatively short. The final went pretty smoothly overall, accumulated a lot with no showdown and won a race when Devilfish got short to knock him out in 5th. Then Doherty got knocked out by Brider and it was 3handed with me, Brider and Piotrowski, with very similar stacks. Brider had told us that he needed 2nd to lock up his biggest ever score so it was obvious he was going to be playing ridiculously tight. And me and the polish guy were basically playing headsupBrider was down to 200k. I felt i was playing very well 3handed, i was taking a lot of lines repping showdown value in our blind v blind battles and it was very effective. Then the blinds went up. and me and the swiss guy ended up getting in a HUGEEEEEEEE race for basically the win, 99 vs AQ, i flopped a 9 and he was left really short. I then had 80-90% of the chips in play and it didn't last long and i managed to take it down. oi oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii :D
Does feel really good, winning any live tournament is a huge buzz and it was nice to get 2011 off to a good start anddddd more to the point finally some money to charity! booom! Ill get to that in a sec.
I really didn't want this post to come across too braggy, but it was an amazing week and i feel like i have to mention it... http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2011/02/brits-sweep-up-in-european-poker-awards-6222.htm
I won rookie of the year and player of the year 2010! Obviously over the moon and i feel bad for not making the ceremony, but i never expected to win both! and i really did not want to miss Nottingham as id been looking forward to it for ages. Simon Trumper picked up the awards for me and id like to thank him for that. Anyway ridiculously sick week :)
So i now have to pick a charity iv been thinking about this week and i have a few in mind but im still considering what to do so im open to suggestions.
I was exhasted after the tournament and never wanted my own bed so bad, the weekend really took it out of me so i drove straight home and slept for like 12hours! Iv been on a high all week, been hitting the gym hard and seeing friends, and im not drinking for a while now unless its a special occasion, i even managed to go out in Leeds and see everyone and not drink even though everyone else was, i got a lot of stick but i was proud of actually showing a little self control!
Im itching to play some more live stuff now, feeling very confident and just want to play as much as i can. So even though EPT Copenhagen is one of the tougher legs i really didn't want to miss it. So found out who was going and Sykes has won a package so im going to room with him. But heading to London soon to fly over early with Jon Spinks and grind online over ftops weekend. So then were settled ready to play.
Looking forward to playing this one, and hopefully i might have a run at ticking off winning a major on Sunday :)
Seems appropriate to end with this...
hoooooooooooooooooooters!
ReplyDelete