Thanks for your interest Jolly but I've just played the second of the 3 events. (report to follow)

I hope to be offering more staking of myself in the near future.

John

XrayEye

It's often easy to outplay opponents- my problem is outplaying the dealer!!

Blackpool GUKPT Event3 (second staked tourny) 6000 starting stack, 45 min levels.

2nd hand I have 2s5s & its folded round to the small blind who makes up the blind (25/50). Flop 6s Qs 7d. He bets 100, I call. Turn 8c, he bets 200 and I call with straight and flush draws. River Kc he bets and I fold.

20 minutes later I'm in midposition with KK, 2 players call the blind (50) then guy to my right raises to 300. Not wanting to give my hand away I flatcall waiting for an aceless flop or preferably a reraise. Instead button and the two 50 callers all call the 300. OOPS this could be trouble if someone flops a set! the flop comes down Qc 5s Kc. Check, check then preflop raiser bets 600, I could and most people would reraise but I'm concealing my hand especially with so many in the hand so I call also hoping for a non-scare card knowing there should be enough in the pot to maybe get someone all-in by the river with sensible betting. Button calls and 1 other. Turn card is 8d (excellent) and I'm holding the nuts still. Check, check, so I bet 1525, fold, call, fold. River 8s. Other player bets 1025, only quad 8s beat me so i all-in for around 3000, he folds immediately. 

I'm up from under 6k to around 11k.

Next I get AK utg and see shortstack itching to shove, so I flat call 100, he does shove (perfect) but smallblind calls, so I just call too. Flop 2 9 6, i look at shortstack and he's smiling at me(!?), sb bets 2200, I fold and shortstack show 2 6os!! He's hit 2 pair and his smile widens, then sb turns over 9 9 for a set and shortstacks big smile disappears faster than Crispy when its his round (joke). Another 9 on the river for overkill

Continued in next post

XrayEye

It's often easy to outplay opponents- my problem is outplaying the dealer!!

Next AKos on the button, sb calls. Flop Jd Qc Kc. Check, and hoping for a blank I check. Turn is a 3, ch, I bet 400, call. River 7h. sb checks and I check knowing I'm only getting called by a hand beating me or if i bet I'm also open to being reraised by a bluff or better hand. He shows 10 J and I collect an ok pot.

Blinds are 100/200 about an hour later. Utg raises to 500, I'm next to act and hold 88 so I call and 2 more call too. Flop 3c 2s 8c, check I bet 1100, reraised by next player to 3500 (woohoo), fold, then player to my right all-ins for 9500. I pretend its a tough decision to try to rope in reraiser then go all-in too. Reraiser thinks for quite a while because he holds QQ then makes a good fold. Other players shows JJ and he misses his 2 outs although the QQ would have hit on the river! :crazyhew

Now I'm on 26k when the average is 10,900. Down to 105 of the 164 starting players.

Rest of level 100/200 and 150/300, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800,  then half of 600/1200 (around 5 levels!) I'm either carddead or in very small pots, and wither down to 19k while the average had grown to 24k.

At last with 20 minutes of day1 left I get AsQs in the sb and when an increasingly regular blind attacker raises to 4200 from the cutoff I decide to give him a difficult decision by moving all-in. Great timing! He has QQ by the turn I have outs of any spade or a 10 for the straight but the river blanks out

I keep wondering if I could have played it differently, but I played the player and this time he had the goods. Maybe I could have flat called about 22% of my stack and folded on the J high flop to a bet, or maybe I would have all-in then trying a semi-bluff and got caught out that way. Whatever various ways I could have played it, I'd waited for 5x45minute levels for a decent hand and dropped well below the average. If I'd doubled up, I was sure I could make the cash. How much longer could I wait for a better hand if somehow I'd folded after the flop, my stack would be 15k and day2 blinds start at 800/1600, so technically shortstack. I decided AQs was possibly gonna be my best chance against a blinds attacker but got the timing wrong.

Event 4 tomorrow is the £500 event and sorry to say last-chance saloon to reward my stakers

XrayEye

It's often easy to outplay opponents- my problem is outplaying the dealer!!

XrayEye

It's often easy to outplay opponents- my problem is outplaying the dealer!!

Event 4 £500 Double chance 4000+4000 chips (final staking tourny)

Sorry I didn't record my hands etc as I decided to try to give 100% concentration to this game. The scenarios given are only fairly accurate.

Seemed to work quite well as early on I flat called a 200 raise from utg with AK calling down to the river with A on the flop and take one guys whole stack of 4000 and half another guys stack of 2000 along with a few bits from other players. Towards the end of the 3rd level another guy is shortish and all-ins a raise to 4000ish and I call with AQ which hits ace first card and I'm up to around 23k and the average is around 10k.

I think there were around 135 players and by 1st break I know I was among the leaders if not the chipleader.

A level or so later I count my stack and its around 25k and the table is broken, I mov to table 1 seat 1.

From now on anything that could go wrong did for 3 hours, I missed or got outdrawn and in one situation I missed my chance(?!). (150/300 blinds)I'm on the button with 2 2 and I raise to 1100 when shortstack in sb allins for 3600, then bb allins covering my 10k. Can I call? Well maybe because I only have to beat the bb to profit and if its a race I should be prepared to try to double up, but I look a donk if he has an overpair. Looking like a donk doesn't really bother me but when I have stakers to answer to, then it's slightly different and I think better of it and fold. Sb shows JQ and bb shows AQ. The flop comes down  2 2 (Quads!!) x J x and sb more than doubles up. 

Now there are about 60 players left, paying down to I guess, 15th place and I'm on 9000 well behind the average (16,000ish). Never mind we're not out and we're overdue a good hand. 20 mins later I get KK on the button. Utg raises to 1350 and Martin Silke (GUKPT league leader) reraises to 3500, woohoo this looks GOOD, and I allin for my 9k. Utg thinks a while then folds and Martin Silke instacalls. I think (bleep) and stand up knowing he gonna flip over pocket rockets which he does and five cards later its 'Goodbye Vienna' and possibly if I'd have called to hit quads he would still have got it all, or would the cards be different? (probably but thats life! Still no guarantees of cashing)

And that was that, disappointing for me and my stakers especially with 2 good starts which I usually take advantage of.

Keep an eye out here a bit longer though, as there may yet be a surprise or two.

Thanks,

John

XrayEye

It's often easy to outplay opponents- my problem is outplaying the dealer!!

ul m8 looks like you did nothing wrong.

better luck next time.