ionapaul’s fantabulous tournament trip report - part I

Below is the first post of the three part trip report covering my experiences playing in a €300 freezeout tournament live in Dublin recently, hopefully it will prove interesting to some readers…

After spending the Friday and Saturday of May Bank Holiday weekend in Galway with my family, I got back to Dublin on Sunday in time for the €300 freezeout side event of the JP Poker Masters at the Red Cow (the main event was a €750 freezeout that I would have loved to have played). 120 runners took to the tables at 4pm, all trying to make it to Day 2 and shooting for poker glory! My opening table were all unknowns to me apart from Smurph (unfortunately she was knocked out early) and Mick McCloskey. I was dealt on the very 1st hand in mid-position and won a fair sized pot from the table calling station, a very nice guy who was known to some of the others but who was just making up the numbers and wouldn’t be there for very long.

I misplayed a hand against Mick during the 2nd or 3rd level; I limped from MP with with two limpers before me, Mick flat called on the button and the SB and BB came along for the ride as well. The flop was . It was checked to me and I bet about 400 into the 1000 pot, Mick raised to 1200 and I hesitantly flat called, intending to check raise him on the turn. The turn was a , I checked, Mick bet 1500 and I quickly raised to 6000 – I honestly don’t know why I went so big, no flush draws on the board and I knew he wasn’t re-raising me on the flop with an OESD (open ended straight draw). He deliberated for about 3 minutes and folded faceup. I mucked and stayed quiet but cursed myself for re-raising so big, stupid!

Sometime afterwards (the early hours of these things always blur together after it’s over, don’t they?), maybe during the 150/300/25 level I picked up in MP, raised to 1100 and was called by a player who fancied himself as the table captain; a regular who liked to play most pots in position, loved to float, pounce on weakness and raise any continuation bets. I’m sure any strong players at the table had him and his growing stack in their sights. The flop was K-high, he checked, I bet ½ pot, he raised as expected, I gave it a bit of Hollywood for a minute or so (a shake of the head, staring at him as if I couldn’t figure out what he had, etc etc…) and pushed all-in (yes, very obvious by me!), he shook his head and called. Shook his head a bit more as I was pushed most of his chips when his didn’t crack my aces!

I now had a 25k+ stack when the average was 13k or so, and didn’t slip back below average until quite late on Day 1. I was moved to a table with Willie ‘Yuletired’ Clynes, managed to stay out of his way and had the sweetest of double ups when I limped / flat-called a min raise (can’t remember!) in late position with , the flop was and I got all the chips in on the turn against . That was another big pot.

I played quite tight with my big stack, I am no-where near as active as many others, I prefer to focus on a few exploitable players at a table and just target them, rather than get aggressive with other aggressive players. For the next few hours I was content taking a number of medium sized pots without showing, usually having the goods but occasionally not; no-one would ever know as when I very rarely showed, I showed my monsters.

Down to three tables, I had Yuletired immediately to my right and he was active! I didn’t want to tangle with him but my blinds were constantly under threat and I found it hard to play back at him post-flop without the goods. It was folded to him on the button on one occasion and he made a 3.5xBB raise (maybe 9k or so?), I looked down at and pushed for 58k or so…happy to take the 14k or so in the pot. He folded after a minute or so, I think he mentioned he had an ace, I told him I had and he questioned my risking my tournament as I could have been against AA or KK. I’d do it again!