Genting Poker Series Leg 2 – London

Although I was never in doubt that the GPS Leg 2 in London was going to be the most popular stop of the Genting Poker Series, still I would have not have predicted it to be a total sell out!!

580 players entered the main tournament, which created a whopping prize pool of 232k and a sweet 50k for the winner:) Not a bad pay for a weekend’s work!

I decided to play day 1 a – Wednesday and was in high spirits when heading to the Fox. It’s my favourite poker club in London where I spend the most time and usually end up playing 7pm daily tournaments. The staff and players alike are very friendly there and welcoming and even if you are a new member you would be made to feel at ease.

Day 1a attracted 143 runners and the place was buzzing with excitement & familiar faces. I needed to get through at least 100 of them in order to make it to the day 2. My plan was pretty simple for this ; with 25k starting stack & 1 hour levels in place I was going to avoid huge pots with potential flips and concentrate on post-flop play instead.

My first major pot I got involved in was with 8h,9h. I believe it was a second level of the day, with 50/100 blinds.

I raised it up UTG and received a 3bet from a player in late position. So far my table notes on this particular player were nothing out of line; he played a few hands, had a tendency to continue with the goods after the flop and I haven’t seen him bluffing yet. So then I received a re-raise from him at that point in time, I was pretty sure he had a genuine hand.

I decided to stick around and see the flop with a good hand to bust a biggie, so I called. The flop brought Kh,Qh,4h and I decided to check for deception with my made flush.

The guy seemed to be happy with the board and very quickly made a decent size continuation bet. I called.

The turn was a 5 of clubs and a good card for me. I checked again with an intention to make him feel like I was on a drawing hand like J,10 or Ace of hearts.

He put in the second barrel which I flatted again. The river was kind to me and brought an irrelevant 3s.

I was pretty confident I had the best hand then, of course unless he 3bet me pre-flop with Jh10h or Ah10h, but considering the type player he was and the fact that I raised UTG and had pretty tight image at the time, it was very unlikely.

I was also pretty certain that he had AK, KK or QQ and needed to extract max value from this. I decided to bet around 80%-90%, which was a very polarised bet considering the texture of the board – it’s either I had the goods or a missed draw.

I was in for a big surprise though, when my opponent after some thought decided to move all in for an extra 18k. I called and was in for an early double up when he tabled AK for a top pair.

From there on I never looked back and continued on building my stack without premium hands. I made the dinner break with a little above average in chips and maybe I could have done even better if Chuck Clark (who is a very good, aggressive player) was not sitting on my left;)

It was a fun table whilst it lasted but I was off to do some damage on a feature table after the break;)

In one of the hands I ended up taking down a big pot on the river when representing a made flush and subsequently forcing the guy to fold the best hand.

It stimulated some lively debate once people found out what I had from the delayed online stream. Maybe a bit too lively at one point…!

Apart from that it was all going to plan and I even managed to get aces for the first time and knock out Charles Chatta with them before the last level of the night.

I have easily made it to the day two and was looking forward to coming back on Saturday to fight further for the title.

I had my parents over from Lithuania that weekend so me going deep in this tournament and winning would have really meant a lot, especially with them being able to come to the Fox to watch it live and rail for me.

No such luck tho! Day 2 of the main event started with 170 players and although I was in a good shape with my 40bb stack, I was running pretty bad from the very start.

I lost my first pot when calling a short stack’s (8bb) all in with  Qd,Jd from the big blind just to see him tabling Ad,Kd. Sigh.. Then I missed couple of draws and also had to fold a small pocket pair when 3 overcards showed up on the flop…not much was going my way. The next few hours saw little improvement in both cards and spots and I was scrapping to stay alive.

I was getting no premium cards and was just looking for good spots to make some chips. In the end I made a yet another move and ran into a genuine hand for an exit -117th/572.

Needless to say I was pretty disappointed with the result, but most importantly happy with my play, that’s what count the most I guess… with a bit more traction, and run-good -I go pretty deep.

Big congratulations to Albert Sapiano who ended up shipping the tourney and taking 50k for his efforts and very well done to all GPS Leg 2 organisers and attendees who made this event a huge success!

Next stop is Edinburgh and I look forward to seeing you all there;)

Tags: Albert Sapiano, Chuck Clark, Fox Poker club, Genting Poker Series, GPS Leg 2, GPS London

Las Vegas Team Challenge III Live Final

Las Vegas Team Challenge is an online league which works on a simple premise. You enter the league by registering a team of 4 members and then play up to two tournaments online each week for 3 months in order to collect as many points as possible for your team.

Las Vegas Team Challenge

The higher your finishing position is in an online game the more points you earn for the team.

This is very important as in the end of the online process, your team’s total score will be your individual team member’s starting stack in the live final where all the teams are competing for the $66,000 Las Vegas Package!

This was the 3rd Las Vegas Team Challenge run by Genting and promised to be the biggest!

My team was called -”Baltic Blonde and the Boys” and with some decent results we had an edge over a fair number of our competition by starting the live final game with the stacks that were in the top 15% of the highest starting stacks.

In addition, the fact that I had very experienced poker players in my team, who had some great results in a live poker tournaments made me feel very excited and confident about the final play off.

Meet the team:

1. Lee Taylor – solid poker player, with superb online & live results. I met Lee over 1 year ago on the poker circuit and we became friends after then.

2. Matt Heap – I met Matt 2 years ago in London at the Fox Poker club whilst playing one of the tournies. Matt is a very solid poker player with some great cashes, especially online, under his belt. Matt was in my team last year and made us proud when finishing in top 20 out of 180 runners in the final.

3. Nick Jenkins – our recent winner of £10k sponsorship with Genting. We met through the Hendon Mob forum and stayed in touch via social media. Nick is a very nice guy and a very talented poker player.

4. And me:)

Las Vegas Team Challenge III live final was held at the one of the largest casinos in the UK – Genting Club Star City – in Birmingham. It was a perfect choice not only because of the venue’s ability to accommodate 66 teams but a vast variety of food & drink in Star City as well as entertainment options.

For instance you could chose between bowling,( not in the casino obviously!) playing golf of football, working out or climbing walls to work out any anger if you bust unluckily early!

Although the game was due to start at 2.15pm, my team mates and I arranged to meet a little earlier, so we would have just enough time to grab a bite & to discuss what we hoped would be a winning strategy.

Taking into account last year’s results and experience where we came third and just missed out on the European Package, it was obvious that this tourney needed a different approach from a typical poker game with minimal risk taking to build your stack and picking key spots tantamount to success.

Lasting longer and not letting your stack get too low were the key elements of focus. There were plenty of last longer bets being struck as we sat down to play!

It is also important for your team to follow the ever changing dynamics of the players round their starting tables – knowing the facts such as how many members were left in each opponent’s respective teams & their stack sizes as well as how many drinks they had sloshed down so far was very important.

It could lead to large potential fluctuations in their playing style!:))

My team was ticking along ok, and we were down to 180 or so players when I encountered my first I tough spot:

I called a UTG+1 raise from the SB with As,Qs and BB elected to come along. We were 3 way to see the flop of Qc,9c,5d. This was obviously a good flop for me and being out of position I decided to proceed with the check raise.

I checked and BB followed the suit, and the initial raiser put in a decent size bet.I raised and before I knew BB announced all-in and he just about had me covered!

UTG raiser quickly folded and action was back on me. I put my thinking cap on;) BB seemed to be reluctant to call a raise pre-flop and I assume that only because he was getting good odds he decided to see the flop.

Hence I would certainly discount any set or over-pair possibilities here.

In addition, his check raise all-in, implied that he was not very keen on further action and wanted to take the pot down immediately.

So it was either drawing two club hands or the less likely 2pair combinations that seemed to make the most sense at the time.

I was in a pretty decent position stack wise at the time & didn’t really needed to get involved in such a big pot, as I remained confident of chipping up as the day progressed without too many showdowns.

Normally with my read and against a tougher field I would call but I decided not to gamble at that point in time.

My decision was a strategic one rather than mathematical, as it would be much more difficult for my team to win the challenge if I got knocked out early- plus I had a reputation to upkeep!;)

I found the fold and the guy showed 3, 4 of clubs. Time would tell whether I would regret this…

We were down to 140 players before we lost our first team member. Matt got very unlucky when running his set into a higher set.

It was actually a very interesting hand, where 3 players entered the pot and all of them flopped sets.

Apparently the odds of that happening with 3 players to the flop is approx 1,000:1! You could play all year and not see this hand live again!

Lee was the next one to bust in 95th when running his JJ on the button into Big Blind’s KK. Another mean set up!

At this point it was all down to Nick and I to make it to the final table in order to have a chance to win the main prize & best team’s title. It was definitely going to be a challenge!

The atmosphere in the Genting Club was great – players who have already bust out were either cheering for their team mates or trying their luck at the casino games whilst the LVTC event host & poker veteran Mad Marty Wilson made sure that everyone still involved kept a smile on their face.

The fun aside, it was down to business for Nick & I and we were slowly but steadily getting closer to the last few tables before I saw Nick appear with his first bottle of beer! Oh no!! He was out in 75th when losing a coin-flip.

With my team mates - Lee & Nick

Well, we were out of any realistic chance of the first team prize and a real outside bet for second prize – a European Poker package worth $12,000.

There was cash from 20 upwards, so I thought I might as well get busy and adjust my game accordingly.

Shortly after we were down to 6 tables and I was moved to the feature table for the first time;)

The TV table was fun; there were a few clearly very aggressive players with the big stacks piled up around and a couple of pretty decent players who were evidently looking to move up the ladder.

I had 15k at the time and the average was around 25k, so had no time to waste and need to start building or bust. I was generally card dead and majority of the pots I elected to enter proceeded or ended with me going all in.

As a result I quickly build a loose table image and fortunately got paid when I actually received a proper hand:

I opened with KK in earlyish position and received a call from one of the biggest stacks on the table.

The flop brought 8h 6h 4c and I continued with a decent size bet. He quickly called. Next card was K of clubs and I quickly shipped the rest of my stack in.

Snap call from my opponent with Q,8 of clubs and I received a long overdue double up:)

Nick Jenkins & Lee Taylor

It was nice having my team mates railing for me round the corner and making sure that my lucky glass of wine was always full:)

I finished the day on 63k (avg was73k) and 24 players left and I was still in the running for the most valuable player title & $6k Vegas package.

We continued the fun with my team at the hotel bar of course;) It was like a mini after party with a fun group of poker players having drinks and a good chat.

The day 2 started at 2pm, so I had just enough time to get enough sleep( yeah, I was up that late!) and hide my tired eyes under a girl’s best friend- make up:)

I was still playing on the feature table and had a few big stacks around the table. Taking my 25bb stack into account I didn’t have too much scope for playing proper deep stack poker.

It was all about waiting for a hand and doubling up hopefully and then bullying the guys who are still competing for the Main Vegas Package and attempting to ladder for the points

I played for 4 hours or so and in that time had only one premium hand – 10,10 with which I made a squeeze play and didn’t get any action. With MVP to up for grabs, I was hanging in there and in the money and down to 16 players I had drifted to around half the average.

The other guy who was my main competition was also still in and needing to finish in the top 4 if he busted before 10th, it was going to be tough!

I was staying alive though, shoving with a rogue’s gallery of hands from 10,6 to 8,3. I was hoping to pick a hand up when I got called or get lucky to get back to average. In the end neither event occurred as I busted in 11th when shoving with 7,9 this time as my decent hand never came! I just missed out on the MVP but was happy to have made a very good account of myself and done my team proud.

It was another cracking event and I look forward to the Team Challenge number 4!

In the interim there is plenty to keep me occupied with the online Team Vegas Challengeand the GPS which is in London this week. Hope to see some of you there!

Tags: Genting Club Star City, Las Vegas Team Challenge 3, Las Vegas Team Challenge 3 Live Final, Poker Live, Star City Birmingham, Team Challenge

Main Event Travel Launch Party

I relatively recently had the pleasure to attend the  MainEventTravel.com launch party which was held at the Full House poker club in Surrey.

The MET brand is pretty new in the poker market, but their name has been circulating around for some time now and I was looking forward to attending this event to find out more about MET business & their offerings.

In addition, I treat these kind of events as a good opportunity to catch up with my poker buddies as well as meet new interesting characters whilst playing a bit of fun poker on the side:)

The added value for me was that I was free-rolling in their launch tournament too. I  won a seat to their £220 freezeout game via a Facebook competition, where you had to “like” their corporate FB page to be entered into a random draw for a tournament seat.  I was running good so far!

Not wanting to be late, I arrived at the venue a little early and just to find that I was one of the first guests in. I’m usually running late for nearly everything, so this was a unique experience.

I was greeted with a glass of champagne on my arrival which is always a good way to start the afternoon. Now, when a girl sees ‘drinks reception’ and ‘cocktails’ she generally picks out a nice frock.

I quickly realised when other players  (mostly male) began to arrive they didn’t have the same criteria and it was hoodies and trainers everywhere!

Chatting with the MET guys, they have positioned themselves to provide packages for travelling poker players to take away the hassle of booking when attending the large poker events.

A nice idea, especially given poker players can often be unorganised and don’t like taking time out from playing, to plan trips- it is the poker that counts. I hope their reputation continues to grow in the tight knit poker community.

Having had enough of the business talk, I was pleased to be distracted by the happy face of Nick Wealthall. I haven’t met Nick in person before, and I can tell that he is as funny as when commentating UKIPT series:)

Another couple glasses of champagne( well, they kept on being put in my hand- what was I to do!) whilst having a cheeky conversation with Nick & the lovely photographer for the night – Iain Raydon -and I was directed to my starting table or to be precise – feature table.

I noted Sam McDonald, Scott Shelley and Luke Fields taking their seats on my starting table too and I instantly knew that this is going to be full of action and probably the most aggressive table in the house!

As I suspected, there was 3 and 4 betting going on nearly every hand and I tried to adjust to this by tightening up my hand range & biding my time for some good spots in position- no point going into a 5-bet war too early!

On the feature table with Scott Shelley

Action continued to get even more ferocious  and not long before we had our first casualty who 6 bet all in with J,10 with no success when running into A,K for an exit.

Sam McDonald was soon to follow the rail when he was crippled down in a huge pot where he was being the initial aggressor & betting out every street & making a big fold to the shove on the river and then unfortunately busting a flip when a shortie.

I had Scott seated on my immediate right, so we got involved in a few blind v blind battles before the following hand took place:

I raised on the button with a genuine hand this time (AA:) and Scott decided to 3bet, I 4bet of course, he still didn’t believe me and 5bet shove all in.

Nice scenario to be in when you hold the nuts pre-flop! I snapped and he showed 4,7 for a stone cold bluff. Bully!!! He managed to catch a 4 but failed to improve further and I scooped a massive pot early doors in the game.

I really enjoyed being the chip leader at the table and the opportunity to try a few different moves before losing a big chunk of my stack in two consecutive hands with AK < QJ and 99 < AJ aipf.

Shortly after we were off to enjoy lovely dinner & drinks on the house & have a mini break from poker. It was good to have an opportunity to meet my new table mates & gauge their seriousness over winning;)

More Champagne!

The Full House club is not a big venue, but they were fully prepared to accommodate a big number of players on this occasion; customer service, food & employee professionalism was second to none and everyone seemed to be enjoying the great atmosphere.

1 hour of chit chatting and relaxation was just enough to get back into full swing of poker.

My new table was ok, with a couple of familiar faces and I took my time to assess my opponents and their betting tendencies before getting involved.

Unfortunately, I lost yet another big flip & I was down to below average stack before getting the rest of my chips in on the turn with open ended flush & straight draws and bricked for an exit and the final table bubble:(

Although I did not manage to cash in this event, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the launch party. Thanks to the MET team for the invite and all the best of luck with your business venture!;)

Tags: Full house surrey, Main event travel, Nick Wealthall, Sam Mcdonald, Scott Shelley

The International Team Event

With less than 2 weeks to go and with 8 players booked for the Hendon Mob Forum team already, I just about managed to secure my place in what turned out to be a winning team;)

I have never played in a proper team event before where “proper” entails the meaning of soft playing, slow rolling and choosing to play differently against your team members.

All of this and even the additional option to consult your team captain on a specific action or move at the table were strongly encouraged! No doubt it was going to be a fun game.

I arrived at the International a little earlier in order to give myself just enough time to go through the new member application process ( as I hadn’t been back to this place since Gutshot days) and meet & greet my team mates from the Hendon Mob forum.

Once I got to the venue, I was kindly told that unfortunately I cannot enter the club unless I had my application proposed and seconded by existing members. Hmmm, time to find someone I knew!
Fortunately the team captain – Stowjon – and a couple of extra boys (Hello Grumbledook and CaptainGee;) popped their head round the door to ease my entry!

All the admin business out of the way, I was finally permitted to enter the club. You know you are in for a raucous game of poker when there is already a queue forming at the bar @12.30pm and majority of the players were formed in groups discussing their winning strategies & making last longer bets.

Final list of the teams and their winning odds were as follows:

1.The Staff 5/2JF
2.The International 3/1
3.Gutshot Forum 3/1
4.The Girls 5/2 JF
5.The Nappy Crew 5/1
6.The Rejects 4/1
7.Main Event Travel 6/1
8.The Western 6/1
9.The Hendon Mob 6/1
10. Black Belt Poker 6/1
11.Pokerchu’s team 6/1
12.Eat My Stack 6/1
13.Team Wallop 6/1

This wasn’t looking great if the bookies were to be believed; however listening to the motivational speech by our pumped up captain and before he passed out a reasonable amount of drink tokens for later, I felt we were more than ready to take this on!

Hendon Mob Forum Team

Once we took our seats we were urged to have a little warm up game of hips and hands which I lost half way through, but only because I didn’t realise there was a prize involved for the winner;)

5 minutes of kamikaze moves and we had our first winner of the day – Jamie Burland, who not only received a free seat to the £100 tourney at 7pm but also a big confidence boost for the game and was seated at my starting table. Bring it on I thought!

Action on my starting table was fast and furious and with some familiar faces from the poker circuit such as Scott Shelley, Big Sam and Jamie I was very quick to notice that it was on one of the loudest & probably the most aggressive starting tables in the room too.

There were lots of interesting hands in play and far too many inflated pots but the most memorable for me was this:

There were 5 limpers including Big Sam – who had been making funky moves all day and backing them up with his outstanding speech play.

So Sam limped along on the button and action was on Jamie Burland in the SB who decided to proceed with a decent size raise. It was an obvious STEAL! Still everyone got out of the way but Sam who decided to stand up to Jamie (btw – he was NEVER folding once he entered a pot).

The flop brought Ks, 2d, 9d and Jamie led out. Sam didn’t take long before clicking back. Jamie went into agony and after an Oscar winning  performance he made a call announcing a “peal!!!”. The next card was a 3s and James checked.

Sam announced all-in the captain of the “Black Belt Poker” team was called in for advice on Jamie’s next move. After a long debate involving nearly all the players at the table and a thorough interrogation of Sam’s live tells, BBP team has decided to go for it and made a call for Jamie’s tournament life with…

Jamie AA v Sam Kd,7d

The river cards was a diamond of course and Sam went on to take a huge pot and a chip leader’s crown at that point in time;)  Sam’s facial expression when he saw the bullets was priceless and I could not stop giggling for the next few orbits.

It was all going well; I was enjoying the table banter and making some chips whilst keeping an eye on my team mates. The latest update from the captain was that we were down to 60 or so players and we still had 7 HM associates in, which was great news and very encouraging.

Captain on the final table (first one the right)

Although there was £1,180 payout and a trophy for a winning team, but it was so not about the money this game. You could read between the lines and see in every team’s player eyes that we were fighting for the bragging rights.

Being recognised as the No.1 team in London/Forum/Club was the key motivator for all of us, especially Stowjon;))

After a dinner break and a good catch up with Grumbledook, dcsw7, paddy and the rest, we were back to the felt based battlefield.

Unfortunately luck wasn’t on my side that night and I busted out shortly after when losing with AK<55 for majority of my stack and then failing at flipping again with AJ<88.

I spend the rest of the night railing my team and making new friends:)

With 40 players left in the game we had a massive edge over the rest of the teams with 6 team members still in and I had every faith that the surviving Hendon Mobsters could pull this off.

Things continued to go well as 3 of them made it to the Final Table of the International Team Event and from this point there was no looking back!;)

The Hendon Mob took the team title shortly later!

Ship it!

A huge well done to the whole team and especially the finalists & our team captain for leading by example.

I am very happy to have been a part of a winning team and look forward to the next team event already to defend the title!;)

Tags: hendon mob forum, hendon mob team, Jamie Burland, Poker, the international poker club, the international team event

Genting Poker Series Leg 1

The most recent visit to Star City in Birmingham was last year in September for the second Genting Poker Players Championship.  Here I was back again-this time for the first leg of the Genting Poker Series and my excitement was palpable!

If you haven’t been to the Genting Club in Birmingham, you are honestly missing out. It’s one of the largest casinos in the UK with a huge card room and a great sports bar for the football enthusiasts. It was the perfect place to start the series!

I arrived at the casino on Thursday, so I would have just enough time to settle in & warm up before playing the Main Event day 1b next day.

After a quick catch up with some poker buddies & fellow Genting pros, I decided to wander around the tables and check out my potential opposition and their respective stack sizes from the Main Event day 1a.

One table provided more entertainment than most; poker veterans Andy Bradshaw & Paul Jackson were playing against some young guns including Steve Warburton & Helena Brett with suitable banter attached.

Whilst I was sipping my tea and trying to pick up some tips from Andy’s famous speech play I was approached by Mad Marty Wilson, who invited me to join him in the commentary booth.I have never done commentating before, so if any of you were listening, hopefully I was making sense;)

It was fun being able to see the hole cards of the players and follow their thought process on each street and of course start to work out who you would like to play back at, if you were sat down.

Anyhow with free time and a poker tournament available it was time to jump in the £100 one day side event. We got underway with our 10k starting stacks and 80 players. I had a dream start when I nearly doubled up with the full house in the second level of the game:

I raised utg 2 with JJ and received 4 callers. The flop brought Js8s6d. I led out and received one call.  The turn was 5 of hearts and I bet again. My oponent thought about it and made a raise. I flatted. The river was a lovely 8.

I bet half the pot for value hoping he had made flush or straight and he instantly shoved all in. I snapped and he showed 5,9 for a bluff. I was confused to say the least!

I’d kept the momentum going, but then things started going wrong. I lost 25% of my stack against a shortie with A10 v 77  and then had to make a lay down on the river for a big chunk of my stack when missing a huge draw and was set all in by my opponent.

In the end as I got low in chips I shoved on the button to help keep my stack respectable and playable, but ran my A,3 of hearts into the SB who had AQ. With no help on the board I busted in 20th.

I’m glad that that Main Event day1b didn’t start till 1pm:) I love sleeping in and I’m at my best when getting 10-12 hours kip;)

A short stroll from the hotel, and I arrived with 10 minutes to go and the place was buzzing! Quite a few UK poker pros were about & the dealers were already set at the tables ready to shuffle the cards.

A prominent table held the trophies and it was as good an incentive as you could wish for. I was sat downstairs in the room two where was a little more quiet & relaxed compared to the main poker room upstairs (including the feature table).

The nice deep structure meant barring disaster I could look forward to some decent poker play. I didn’t have the best start and was down to 20k from a starting stack of 25k. I bricked the river in a couple of drawing pots & then got out-kicked on a pretty dry Ace high board.

I was being really patient but somehow every time I got involved in a pot I seem to lose it by the river…So when after 3 levels I was told I am being moved to a new table I was more than happy; until I found out that my new seat was the seat of “death” where 3 players had got knocked out already-sigh!

2 hands in on my new table and I find AJ suited utg2 and proceed to raise. I receive 2 calls including the BB. The flop brings K, 7, 5 rainbow and the BB checks. I decided to lead representing AK or another premium pair. The guy on the button elects to fold and the BB just flats.

The turn is a 7, which does not change much and BB checks to me. Once he checks, I know it is unlikely he has a King, however a lower pocket pair such as 99, 88 is more likely. I decided to check the turn with position and the chance to take the pot away on the river.

The river brought a Jack and my opponent fairly quickly made a decent size bet, which was around 70% of the pot.

Hands I am beating: missed straight draw, 88, 99, 10s
Hands I am behind: Kx, A7, 87

With around a 50/50 chance of being right, so I decided to take my time and observe my opponent whilst trying to pick up some live reads…He seemed a little edgy and the more I thought about it the more I was leaning towards a call, so I did and he mucked. Always nice to get the call right.

The seat of death seemed to have been abandoned by the grim reaper for the moment and I soon picked up another decent pot when missing my nut flush draw but hitting two pair instead. 6 levels in and I was ticking along just fine with a just above average stack of 60bb before the following hand occured:

The Level was 200/400 and it folded round to the button who is a capable aggressive player. He makes it 1,150 to go, SB gets out of the way and I look down to find QQ, and I make it 2,850 and action is back on him. I just about have him covered.

He dwells for a bit and decided to ship it for 26k. I snap and he reluctantly rolls over 10,9 of diamonds. I am dead by the turn when he picks a diamond flush and down to 7bb….GUTTED!

I double up the very next hand with AA v KQ (typical!) and then just lose another race to bust. Sometimes you do nothing wrong but the poker gods abandon you!

Luckily the late registration was open till the end of level 9, I was kindly offered the 1 permitted re-entry by Genting and I was back in the game. I re-entered the tourney some 30 minutes later with with 25k in chips and the average at that point was 38k and had around 2 levels to increase it before day 2.

I was moved to a totally new table which was located at the back of the main room upstairs. There were a couple of familiar faces but no-one who stood out to be fearful of. I built my stack up to 31k before the day was over and it was time to bag and tag the chips.

I was back Saturday and managed an early double up, just what I needed. I raised UTG to 3.7k on 1,600/800 blinds amd got 3-bet to 9.5k. I decided to dwell up for a while, check my opponents stack, before shoving all in with my aces. The guy snapped me off with AQ and I was up to 63k and not far off the average.

There were a few more orbits with not much action, before I ended up with the following hand:- UTG raises x 3 to 6k on blinds of 1/2k binds and antes too. In late position I found myself with AK suited.

Now I thought about a 3-bet, but then that would open up the opportunity for a 4 bet and leave me with a tricky decision to fold. Plus putting around 25% of my stack in to fold with a premium hand didn’t really stack up.

So I shoved for my 65k stack, happy to take a 10k pot, make 99,10′s and even JJ fold. I’m also happy to race against QQ for such a decent pot. The raiser thought for a brief while but called with KK. The flop brought a K and flush draw for me, so some solace that even flatting or a 3-bet call by the raiser would have stacked me off.

A disappointing exit, but another day I hit my flush and go on to go deep. A very enjoyable event and fantastic turnout with over 350 runners for the Main Event.

On to the next GPS at Fox Club in London and look forward to seeing you there;)

http://gentingpokerseries.com/schedule/leg-2

Tags: Genting Club Star City, Genting Poker, Genting Poker Series, GPS, GPS Leg1

Genting $10k Bounty Tournament

After a good bit of promoting by Genting, and a fair few tweets from my good self it was Sunday and the launch of the fantastic $10,000 bounty promotion in the weekly $200k guaranteed on iPoker.

The premise was simple – play on Genting- knock me out and win $10k. I figured the safest bet was for me to win it, but it didn’t quite pan out that way!

I was off to a good start when taking my first pot down with Kings.

I raised utg and received a call from a small blind. The flop brought 8c,3s,6c and the opponent checked to me. I bet out to get paid by any draws he maybe on. He called. The small blind checked call the Jd turn and folded to my value bet on the 4s river.

A couple of orbits later I managed to get paid further with 2 pair against lower two pair and my starting stack of 10k was up to a healthy 12k. Things were looking up.

There was plenty of early action around the table, and not knowing who were Genting players made it a bit harder to guess players ranges when involved in hands.

The next hour or so was pretty quiet. I had to fold AK after being the pre-flop aggressor but totally missing the flop against two active players both giving action & shortly after had to muck pocket 8’s too, when the flop brought 3 over-cards.

Whilst I might not have been active in that many pots, I was getting plenty of support on the rail. Genting players were hoping I’d stay in long enough ( and they would too) to hit their table and one even made a comment bemoaning an empty seat he was hoping would be filled by me- hadn’t been!;)

No-one on my table was getting involved in the banter, so I figured it may actually be a Genting player free table.

Anyhow, back to the game.  We were on 100/200 level when it was folded down to me on the button and I looked down at Qs8s – good enough to make a small raise, which I did.

Small blind folded and BB – Nirvana2012 – decided to just flat.

The flop brought 6d, 7s, Js and BB checked. It was a decent flop for me. I led out for 500, which the BB quickly flatted. Was this a Genting player I asked myself?

The turn was an 8 of clubs, giving me a second pair & a fair few more likely outs. BB checked again, this led me to believe that he may be holding a low pocket pair or be on some kind of draw too as majority of the time players lead out on the turn when they’ve hit top pair, and with multiple draws out.

I check behind for pot control and the river brought the 4d. My opponent was first to act and after thinking about it for a bit he made a bet of half the pot.

Now I had to consider he had a jack, but also a possible missed flush draw, 8,9 for the straight draw or possibly a semi-bluff with middle pin 7, x. I decided my 8 was good and made the call. He showed J, Q to take the pot down. Wrong this time;(

I lost some more of my stack after flopping top pair in the sb with Q,5 and being called on the flop by the bb,(pre-flop limper folded). The turn brought a king and a raise to my bet. Either a bluff or my Q was no good, so I folded again. Not such a great last hour or so for me.

I was down to about 5k when it was folded down to me on the button and I decided to make a move.

The last thing I wanted was to get too low on chips and let someone take an easy bounty, they were going to have to pay to try to get all my chips!

With Q, 9 it was a good enough spot to shove stealing the blinds and antes with the added consideration it played well against a lot of hands should I get an unlikely call.

So I shove and the BB snap called. At this moment I’m thinking uh-oh and when he shows J,9 figure he must be a Genting player gambling.

He knew something as the A, J, 10 flop put him ahead and I missed the multiple outs to bust.

It transpired he wasn’t a Genting player at all, which makes the J,9 call for 80% of his stack even more bewildering.

So the $10,000 bounty remains unclaimed this week and on to next week for your chance to bust a pro, get a massive payout and the kudos! Good luck!

Tags: $10k Genting Bounty, Genting 200k guaranteed game, Genting Bounty Tournament, Genting Poker

Palm Beach Big Game

Having had a few relaxing weeks whilst spending Christmas with my family in Lithuania and then after joining my friends for New Year’s celebrations in Florence, I was very much looking forward to being back in the UK for some poker action.

First up in my 2012 poker schedule was the Palm Beach Big Game. Now there’s nothing like a few days in a beautiful Italian city full of Prada, Versace and more to provide a young lady with an incentive to do well in her next poker game!

Palm Beach Casino London

January’s game not only attracted a respectable 68 players, but surely given the small field and number of great players, one of the toughest to be found in the UK in the last 12 months

Praz Bansi, James Akenhead, Matt Perrins, Sam Trickett, James Dempsey, Luke Schwarz- (I could continue- but you get the idea) were all ready to commence battle for the 20k approx first prize!

Inevitably I got a few quality pros on my table including Nik Persaud sitting 3 seats to my right and Ross Boatman 3 seats to my left.

The action was fast and furious with Nick being the table aggressor and subsequently taking the highest percentage of the pots down. Perhaps the most debatable hand at the table was when he got involved with Luke Schwartz:

Nick raised it up in late position and received a quick 3bet from Luke seated on the button. Everyone else got out of the way and Nick elected to flat. Mind you I should mention that Luke late registered for the game and this was his second or third hand he played at the table!

The flop brought 6,9,5 rainbow and Nick elected to check. Luke thought about it for a bit and before announcing “ooooops”  after making a bet of 5k into around 700 pot whilst looking pretty cheeky… Was he bluffing or did he really have a decent hand, it was really tough to tell at the time.

Anyhow, back to the hand. Nick went into the tank and the clock was nearly called before Nick made a decision to go all in.

Nik Persaud

Now it was clearly obvious that Luke wasn’t happy at all! He only had about 3k behind, and although he was totally pot committed, he was very reluctant to make the call and was taking his time before his final move.

He did call in the end and tabled Q, 10 for a cold stone bluff whilst Nick showed 6,8 for a medium pair and a gutshot draw.

A brick on the turn and river and we had another casualty…Luke wasn’t happy with the call but didn’t get angry this time and peacefully left the table.

I was ticking along ok with no premium hands and had an action packed table I still managed to make the first break with just slightly below average chip stack under my belt:)

Downing a couple of cups of mint tea (NYE had been very messy) whilst catching up with familiar faces and a quick nip outside for some fresh air and I was feeling refreshed and ready to continue with the tourney.
Unfortunately my dry spell of cards continued and my stack was heading south when I failed to take a couple of entered pots in position after making some moves.
I was in a “sit out” mode for an orbit or so, before I looked down at my hand to find KK – FINALLY!

I had a funny stack of around 13bb at the time and when folded down to me in the cutoff I had to make a quick decision in terms of how to proceed with my cowboys.

I didn’t want to shove as it would be too much action unless someone was to find a decent hand behind me, but with my tight image at the time they would probably even fold a low pocket pair or A, 10, in that spot, so I decided to get either action, or preferably a 3-bet.

So I min raised and the button who only had 9bb stack only flatted which was fine with me and action was on Ross Boatman next who was sitting in the SB.

Ross thought about it for a bit whilst eyeing me up and has concluded he could make me fold. Therefore he proceeded to make a squeeze play by shipping half of his stack in the middle.

I was pretty sure Ross wasn’t folding now which the relative stacks, but still took my time playing it cool before putting the rest of my chips in.
The button guy quickly folded and I looked up at Ross’ face to see him kicking himself as he now knew he was calling behind, but couldn’t really get away.
He called and tabled A,5.  I lasted until the turn before he spiked an ace, and I was on my way!

No regrets though, played as well as I could and hopefully it was not a sign of how I’ll run in 2012!

Well played to Philip Porter – online qualifier – who emerged a winner in such a high standard field.

If you fancy a shot at a big score and rubbing your shoulders against the UK’s best poker players, there is a weekly £27.50 qualifier into a monthly £150 buy in satellite where you can win a seat to the Palm Beach Big Game.

After that you are only one game away from that new Rolex or Prada handbag! Good Luck!

Tags: Baltic Blonde, Baltic Blonde Poker, Genting Poker, Nik Persaud, Palm Beach Casino, Palm Beach casino London, Ross Boatman