Fog on the Tyne is all Wine

GUKPT Newcastle Day 1b and high hopes of having another good run like last year. Only 42 runners on Day 1a though, which was very disappointing and almost certainly spells the end of Newcastle as a venue on the Main GUKPT Tour.

Anyway, Friday didn’t go well, I was happy enough with the table, though quite a tough bunch. A few pro’s, some regular faces, Dara O’Kearney, two Irish Open final tableists in Nicky Power and Tom Dunwoodie, Greek Jack who was on my table at Walsall, George Geary and Dan Rudd, among others. Took a bit of a hit with QQ v AJ – Paul "Fatmarra" Moss hit the Jack on the flop and wasn’t folding, the turn brought the Ace. Check, check. It wasnt a big pot, Paul bet 300 on the end and I reraised it to 800, knowing he'd hit but hoping to represent trips, because he had been savaged several times in earlier hands and had always been beaten when he'd hit the flop big, so I was relying on his current insecurity. But he made the call with two pair, fair enough, no real damage done.

Then later in the 3rd level, with blinds at 75/150, I raised from the cutoff with AK – the big blind (Greek Jack) called, which to be fair he would have done with a wide range of holdings. Flop was AAJ with two hearts – hello, trips, very nice - I checked, he checks. The turn is the 4 of clubs, so now two clubs are on there as well, but I'm not too worried he's flushing. I check, he bets 300 into a 975 pot, which seemed a bit small but looked like he was trying to take it away with nothing, so I make it 1200, then he makes it 3k. Mmmm, I'm only behind to JJ, 44, AJ, or A4 - out of all the possible permutations of hands he can have, what are the odds he has those? Assuming him now to have a strong underpair, I push, only to find he has AJ. Dunno what the odds are of that but they are obviously not bleeding long enough. Should I have sussed he had the ace with a paired kicker? Discuss. It was a real cooler and hard - well impossible for me - to get away from, though I had a spooky feeling that it didnt feel right as I pushed my chips in. I guess you should trust your instincts - I had been hearing tales of AJ outdrawing people all week in the side events and it really was the nuts at Newcastle – the deciding hand on Sunday on the final table was AJ too. Que sera sera.

Played the £100 on Friday night but was just playing for fun (and drinking) so did no good there either – my eventual push with Ad 10d from the button running into QQ in the blinds. But a decent weekend and met up with some tour regulars, enjoyed a good chat with Dara O’Kearney and Mike Hill among others.

My mate Mike went into day 2 third in chips, but donked out in 21st spot for no money – largely due to a very bad (IMO) call from the blinds for half his stack with KJ when the cutoff had AQ. In fairness the cutoff had raised him 4 times out of the last 5 orbits. But he never recovered from that. As compensation, he subsequently headed home and won a package to the WSOP Main Event on Stars – a $215 shootout with 81 players - so it wasn’t a bad weekend for him overall. Jammy git.