EPT LONDON

Its been along time since I have written anything so I can't recall hands as well I would like but here goes.

Day 1B. Very good table draw. Only notables were Timex who is a fairly solid online MTT player aswell as November 9 Finalist Ilan Schwartz  as well as an online friend of mine, Adam York who was weirdly sat on my immediate left and probably the only person I had said "See you there" to prior to event. Play for me was pretty straight forward for the first 6 Levels, I picked up enough small pots to ensure my confidence was high which is a very important factor for me in live poker. I was able to snap of a double barrel bluff by Ilan with 4th pair that gave me a strong enough image to ensure i could play with some comfort on this fairly weak table.

Unfortunately it is now January the 4th and I have forgotten many keys hands but I still want to tie up some lose ends. 

Before I moved to my 2nd of 3 tables for Day 1 I was able to flat a 3bet from a new donk with QQ. Unfortunately I was unable to extract anymore (even with 40BBs+ Eff) on a Qh Xh Xh flop and my bet on the turn ended the hand.  Soon after this I was moved table which really sucked because I was very comfortable. 

Having no reads on my new table proved to be costly. 2nd hand I pick up QQ and open UTG+1 with a 22k stack (300/600). A young online player (who turned out to be Fatal Error) with a similar size stack called in the CO and a tall, slap-head Scandy 3-bet (with a stack of about 27k). This was a spot that you always dread in these big live buyin events, especially since your tourney life is so much more value than your standard daily donkements.  What is sicker is that given first impressions and the way this guys chips were stacked (and the mixed denominations) he seemed like he had been very active and that this was just an obvious squeeze. I felt that he was testing my resolve and knew that his FE pre/post flop was increased given that I was new to the table and wouldn't want to go to war readless and OOP for my tourney life. I did consider just folding, predicting that it was always going to be a nasty spot. I also Considered 4Bet/calling or even just shutting my eyes and shipping but came to the conclusion that seeing a flop with a good intention of CR was the best line. I think mostly i wanted to avoid racing pre v AK.

Anyway the flop was As 3s 3 and it went Chk Chk which i was pretty pleased with. The turn was the Ks and now I picked up the Nut flush draw. I did consider betting and on reflection maybe made a mistake not half potting here but felt like he was calling a lot of the time so this was rarely a semi-bluff and never a value bet and so I just opted to check given that I was never going to fire a second barrel if I missed river. So i check and now he bets something close to 5k which is now nearing 1/3 of my stack. I think I can call here but evaluated that I will be check/folding to any non-spade/Queen river so I left myself open to getting bluffed by air, so as I result I just fold with no money committed post.

Other than that I am fairly card dead and play fairly tight once my momentum goes. Phil Ivey joins the table which I predicted would be -EV on my blind stealing. He stayed for an hour built up his shortstack, got a beat and then horribly limp called 55 from the sb v Fatal errors standard K6 push. It was odd from Phil as I couldn't see the value in slow playing a small pocket pair with 10BBsish.

I was allin and chopped with AJ v AJ on A high flop and then later 3bet shoved 88 from SB v bald Scandy and ran into AA in the BB FFS. Luckily I spiked one of my 14 outs on the river and so I was able to join my final table of the day with an around average stack (tending to be between this and lowish for the remainder of the day).

My new table had Isabelle Mercier, Andre Akkari and Johannes Strassmann (who was impressive). I 3bet-shoved a bit in standard spots to try and gain a good stack for day 2. In the end i was like half average when the lowest nittiest player in tourney raised UTG and by mistake I caught a glimpse of one of his whole cards which i thought was an Ace. Now i'm not a cheat and am the first to tell some when they are flashing cards but given the fact that I had extra info on Villain I decided to call ATC and assume that he has raised AJ+ with the intention of taking the pot away from his. Anyway the flop came Q 8 x and I had A8 so I just decided to CR his half stack Cbet for value rather than a bluff given that AQ was s small enough part of his range. Anyway he tanks and starts cursing and now I'm very comfortable predicting he will fold leaving 3-5BBs lol. So I ask him what he has and he says TENS!! and so now i'm shitting it with only 6 BBs more than him. Anyway to my relief he makes the worst fold ever explaining that I have to have a Queen and I avoid this weird beat even though I deserve to get felted for my sneakiness and unethicalnessness.

I Finish the day 40/150? stack....something like that.

Day 2 was simple. i play nitty i make it to final 90 top 55 paid. I shove 25 BBs pre with KK over Vanessa Roussos open after 3 levels of play. She snaps AKhh and spike Ace on turn after a no heart 7 high flop and i miss the chance to take a stack that would have taken me into the money and maybe beyond.

O well, Michael Martin won it eventually and he is a FIFA fan so I guess thats OK. Now that he has a Million £ I need to play some HU FIFA games against him and not lose. I did offer to play him and Ansky in Budapest Versus me and Eddie (=dreamteam) but it was FIFA 08 on the PS3 which was probs -EV and I was still in the ME.