Heriot-Watt Poker :: Oh I wish it could be Aspers every day.....

Card Rack · Royal Flush

Happy New Year guys, it's been a bit quiet on the forum recently, so I'll put up a little tournament report from my 4th Aspers tournament. Having made the final table in my first two freezeouts and failing to win a single pot the last time I played, I was hoping to keep up my results there. I mainly was just dying to play some poker, as it'd been a while!

I sat down for the Friday night £20 freezeout as one of 120 local hopefuls. Started with 3k and 25-50 blinds. First hand of note comes when I have 78s in the small blind there's 3 limpers (one mid position and 2 late position), I complete the blind and the BB checks his option. The flop comes down J 7 8 with 2 diamonds, I check, BB checks, 1st limper bets 50 (!), other 2 limpers call. So there's 400 in the pot and I raise the min bet to 600 overbetting the pot, BB folds and all 3 limpers call (!), the turn is a pretty black deuce and I just push all in and get no callers. The guy on the button mentions if he was chinese he would've called me - more from this guy below.

A clearly inexperienced young kid makes it 1000 p/f at the 25-50 level from UTG, the guy who made the Chinese statement thinks for a while and calls. The flop comes 10 9 4 rainbow, the noob checks, the other guy goes all in with A10s and gets called by A6s (!). Another guy at the table questions the guy calling p/f with A10 for 1000 (quite rightly - can anybody seriously defend that play?????????), the guy starts ranting about how he knew he was ahead and berates the noob's play while he is still at the table. The guy then says he could run rings around the guy who questioned his play about pot odds and value. I think he was just a bit of a deluded attention seeker.

At the 50-100 level (I've got ~6k), a guy in EP makes it 500 to go, I re-raise from the big blind to 1500 with JJ, the guy calls. Flop comes 9 high and I bet 1500, guy goes all in for another 800 more and I call fearing the worst. He turns over AKs with no flush draw, my hand holds up and I take down a nice pot. Stumble along getting either total trash or super strong card rack hands, making getting paid off difficult as I'm not in many pots, my AK and QQ hands win the blinds only.

Get moved to a new table as my table breaks, get dealt KK in my second hand at the new table in the SB, one players is all in for less than the BB but get no other interest, so I attempt to slow play it against the BB but can't get him to bite and I win a small pot. After I've worked out how the table is playing, I try and steal from the button against blinds who would give me some respect. At the 300-600 level I made it 1800 with q10o, got called by the SB who bet out 3k with what he said was AK on a 3 baby flop, what is it with Geordies and thinking AK is the nuts when you don't even flop a pair!

I make the break with an above average 8k stack, nothing much happens for a bit after the break as I go card dead/good situation dead for a while. Make it down to the last 5 tables, and have a stack of ~11k at the 400-800 level. UTG+1 makes it 3000 to go and I pick up KK on the button and just push (maybe should've raised smaller) and get called by the a short stack in the blinds with KQo but original raiser folds - Kings hold up.

I make it to about 20k with 30 left (12k avge), and decide it's time to chip up and use my image to start attacking the medium stacks. Unfortunately, my plan becomes unstuck as the guy to my immediate right goes on a tear. He called all in as a short stack with 85s and was up against 4s and hit an 8, he then calls 2 further all ins with 85s again and 75s and takes down AQ in both of them. Every time I wanted to steal he'd raise before I could and I never had a re-raising hand. I thought about re-raising him with A8o but thought better of it and he ended up showing KK - phew.

The blinds started to grow and a combination of another mistimed steal and being card dead, mean I get down to the last 20 with ~13k and blinds of 700-1400 (a good level between 600-1200 and 800-1600 most casinos don't have). Tried to keep my head above water my pushing a couple of times without getting called. Then I pick up QQ and feel obliged to push again as now putting in a small raise will look too suspicious, alas it goes through uncalled. Blinds are crippling me and pick up nothing for a bit, manage to survive to the final table with ~10k (36k avge) and blinds at 1500-3000. So I'm not expecting much more than the £60 for tenth with my 3BB stack.

The final table are a decent bunch, 2 of them having played in the World Series Main Event. One of them recently having won £30k in some Titan tournament, he seemed a canny older guy. Although he declared internet poker was rigged and everybody else agreed with him, i kept quiet again, I just couldn't be bothered.

So having 4 hands before the blinds hit me I was prepared to wait a max of 3 hands before pushing. 3 absolute trash hands are followed by the beautiful looking AK and I get isolated thankfully by the big stacks AQ and I double up. Still have a mountain to climb but a couple of big stacks get into a confrontation with AK v QQ, followed by an AK v 1010 & 1010, ensures we're down to 6 players. Nice one. Manage to find 88 at the 2000-4000 level with my 20k stack and push UTG+1 and get called by JJ, boo. He flops a set, to ruin any drama for the turn and river, and I pick up £140 for my efforts.

Position: 6th out of 120
Profit: £118
Preflop all in coinflips involved in (whichever person was all in): 0
Aspers FTs: 3/4

I love Aspers, my 3:1 advantages have held every time and long may it continue! Just wish I could play there more, the professional dealers allow for many more hands increasing a good player's chance of winning.

BigD · HW Legend

Well played.

Card Rack · Royal Flush

Cheers, I reckon I could teach anyone to play it like I did though. These all in donkaments can get quite tedious sometimes. Shame I couldn't play in the £30 sat f/o with the old 4k stacks and 2 45min levels followed by 30min ones thereafter.

Alex · Five of a Kind

Nice report, I was rooting for you to win!

Stuart · Royal Flush

Yep nice report, well played. Also... Alex, your avatar is very awesome.