So I woke up on the Saturday morning feeling a little worse for wear and made my way down to The Fox Poker Club in the west end of London. I checked in and, being a platinum member, received a voucher of 20 drink tokens entitling me to twenty free drinks - nice. Pity I was far too hungover to actually use them. Anyway, I milled around a bit and then took my seat at Table 2, Seat 2. Along with the aforementioned ID card, a very nice scarf was sitting there at each place, lovingly folded for each player - a very nice gesture. (I'll do an image of the scarf later.) I'd already done my research on the players and figured that, on paper, I was sitting at a pretty mean table. I'd even tried to convince anyone on the forum, who was remotely interested, that I was on The Table Of Death.
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You can check out PKR's official photos for L5 right here. In the meantime, here's a rundown of my starting table:Seat 1 -Rattus: This fella, whose username is an anagram of his real name (Stuart), is a fairly regular face at The Fox and he was on very friendly terms with one of the dealers. He said I was less fat than he'd thought I'd be - which was nice. He came to the tourney with a good few recent results at live MTTs. His girlfriend was a constant source of support and although not quite off-putting did seem to be on the scene every five minutes taking his photo and whatnot. His manner at the table was friendly and he was willing to chat about this that and t'other.
Seat 2 - Wobblebottom: Just some fat geezer who thinks he's better than he really is.
Seat 3 - ScottyStarburst: This young, round and happy-faced chap is known as a high-stakes online pro player at PKR and even wrote a double-page (four-page?) spread in the WPT magazine on how to win a pot limit omaha tournament. I think he's popular with the in-crowd and certainly knows his stuff. At the table, he was a fairly quiet presence ( I thought he'd be louder) and it was clear that he was trying to build an early stack lead. He played many hands loosely from early position, never got going and went out early.
Seat 4 - Trymean77: Trymean77 has an excellent record at MTTs and won The Fox Launch party event soon before L5 kicked off. You only have to check out her sharkscope graph and her appearance on page 15 of Issue 6 of Stacked to see that she knows the game. She brings to the table her trademark dyed red hair and fairly strong (Swedish) accent. At this table she was clearly knocked back by getting involved in a flush-heavy board against japete and never really got back into it. Soon after, her AA got cracked by Rattus's QQ and she headed for an early exit.
Seat 5 - tebby1: This guy had no real record to speak of but played a fairly quiet, solid game. He may have been playing his hand strength a lot but I didn't really get involved with many hands against him. Like Ablazemusic in Seat 9, he didn't seem like a regular high-stakes live player or anything like that. He crashed out when his set of 9s got caught out by Ablazemusic's full-house on the river.
Seat 6 - ZONE52: This guy just looked like the new kid from a different country who had just joined the classroom. He never seemed to get to grips with the chip denominations, had to be constantly reminded about the state of play and just seemed to be at a loss as to what the hell was going on. In saying that he lasted a long time and was quite hard to read.
Seat 7 - japete: I only got involved with one hand against japete and when I did, I took the opportunity to ask him how he pronounced his username; ja-pet, ja-peet or ja-petty and he said any would do. When I asked him his real name it sounded like "Yolb" but I've since learnt it's Jaume. (You pronounce the "J" with a "Y" to make "Yome.") Any well-informed PKR player knows this man's credentials - pay a visit to the PKR website and he is revered as a cash game king. He's almost a PKR pro-in waiting and he has a feature in the latest issue (Issue 11) of Stacked. (No link available yet.) Look at his sharkscope graph and you can see that he's smashed the MTTs as well. His table manner is what you'd expect from this highly popular player - a very warm personality and an absolute gentleman! He grabbed 2nd place overall by the way. Wow, I almost felt like writing that the sun shines out of his arse as well but that would just be rude.
Seat 8 - siggen333: As a regular multi-tabling presence at the $200nl+ cash game tables and a player I had respected, I was expecting this guy to be MEAN and he didn't disappoint. He looks pretty mean and scarey in his appearance and his table manner is very similar. Business-like, no-nonsense, tough to get a read and he raised my blind so much (as expected) I was thinking of buying some ribbon during the break so I could gift wrap the chips for him. I can't say I was disappointed to see him go when his AQ failed to improve against Rocken's AK.
Seat 9 - Ablazemusic: Much like tebby1, this fella was a bit of an unknown quantity beforehand but seemed to play fairly solidly. However, he just seemed to lack that confidence or spark that you see in a real contender which is all the more reason why I was so annoyed at donking off a load of chips to him and letting him off the hook in a major hand that really messed me up (see below). He was still going strong when I exited and I think he may have even grabbed a cash place.
Seat 10 - Rocken1900: This very mild-mannered fellow spoke zero words at the table and was almost a non-existant presence who seemed more than happy to be off the radar. He played as tight as the Rock of Gibraltar, got involved with very few hands but, as someone at Number 1 in the all-time money list with winnings of over $200K, commanded 100% respect from the rest of the table! There was no way you could get a read from him but you could sense he was always sussing out the table, like a cobra, waiting to see when the moment was right to pounce. Top man. Top player.
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As play continued a fair few more players came to the table, far too many to mention (and I apologise if I've missed you out) but two characters stood out. One was a French player; tall, distinctive, stylish and with the look of Brad Pitt about him. His name was HappyApple and he was known, on the PKR forum, for being involved in the biggest pot ever played for in a PKR cash game. I'm not going to dig out a link but it was for a pretty penny I can tell you. The other was an Italian chap who I sometimes see at the $200nl cash tables at PKR and who has a very good MTT record as well (approaching $30K profit). He goes by the name of ilcurioso and you can read a profile about him in an issue of Stacked. Check out his double page spread in Issue 9 of Stacked (p16-17) and his photo as he poses majestically while looking mysteriously into the distance. ------------
-----PKR and The Fox Club are not big fans of my face but they love my arms. You can see part of my right arm in the picture of Rattus and a bit of my left arm in the picture of ScottyStarburst in the official set of PKRL5 photos.. You can see my right arm behind LockeLamora's hat and glasses at the far right of the screen in this youtube clip at 0:49 and you can see more of my arms in Seat 2 (2 to the right of Hardeep and his turban) at 1:06.-----
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Well, to be honest, my performance reminded me of those chess tournaments I used to play many years ago. I'd take hours to get to the place and then sit down playing good, solid chess for hours, even making a few inspirational moves that a master would be proud of; then......I'd throw it all away with a blunder of epic proportions and wonder why the hell I'd even bothered in the first place!! This is just what I HATE about MTTs. Well, my event was very similar to that. I was ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing very nicely right up until when the table dynamic changed, after about 5 or 6 hours when we were down to about 50 or so players, with the gradual arrival of three or four new players who'd been transferred from other tables. The key hand occurred when I was on a fairly reasonable stack, but I can't remember if I was acting after the villain or not or if I was on the button or in the blinds or what; I just can't remember. I looked down at 6 7s and my villain raised preflop in late position. I made the call and the flop came Q Q x, giving me a flush draw. My read was that my opponent hadn't hit anything and was just cbetting the flop and turn with nothing. I just called on both streets (not good) and when my flush failed to come in I just gave up and checked it on the river (totally bad)!! Needless to say, he showed A 10 for an ace-high hand and my table image crumbled right there.
Not going with my read and not putting him all-in on the river was just criminal - I'm sure he would have folded to an all-in. Anyway, this kind of annoyed me and I was down to about 12BBs. I know I still have a lot to learn with MTTs because the annoyance with my bad play really tilted me and I just completely lost my balance. (This just doesn't happen to professional players.) I just didn't want to play this tournament with a short-stack and something in my head pressed the "panic button" far too early. I know this. Soon after this hand I looked down at 44 in late position and I told myself I was going all-in if it was folded to me. Lo and behold, it folded to me, I went all-in but got called by someone holding 10 10 in the small blind and that was it - thank you and goodnight. I was so pissed off with my play that I couldn't bring myself to hang around for any sort of cash game action - and I headed straight for the bus journey home.
It can be very disheartening, to walk away from a tournament table knowing that you've played well but that you got knocked out cos the villain got lucky - but it's a hell of a lot worse when you leave the table knowing that you've played like a complete donkey! (Even if it's just the one or two hands.) Anyway, in a later post I will sum up the final day which consisted of the Terminator Tourney and lots of SnG and cash table action. I'll give you my take on the players at my table in that tourney (plenty of pros and interesting characters) and some of the characters I met at the side-games afterwards, including some of the regular mid to high stakes PKR cash game players.
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