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Back to Black

Leg 1 of season 3 in the Black Country Poker Club last night so a trip to West Brom for that, and their £15 Freezeout. Failed to make the final table after my pocket eights were no match for Steve Redfern's AK - with three 10's on the board I had boated up on the turn but the inevitable King on the river sent me walking. Always get them in ahead, sigh. Hilarious night ensued with new attendee (and Peter Kay lookalike) "Scouser" keeping everyone in stitches, with his witty and sometimes near the knuckle trash talking -much chat also surrounded his APAT ban where he appears to have offended the wrong people - I don't attend APAT events but I'm sure the tables are less enjoyable with him absent!

Heard news that The Broadway Casino in Birmingham had poor attendance for the Main Event at their Festival this week - only 33 runners for day 1A and another 43 players at the tables for day 1B, so that was disappointing and resulted in a massive overlay of nearly £26k. I might have gone down for the live satellites - they went in my diary when the Festival was announced - but the Main Event (had I survived day 1) was going to clash with the Wolves v Arsenal match, and as a season ticket holder that just had to take precedence!

Apparently the Festival organisers caused some controversy on day 1B, the start of which was delayed for over an hour in the hope of more runners taking part, but more significantly when allegations emerged that the management had entered a number of players on a freeroll basis - with the players getting 10% of any cash - just to boost the numbers. It's been alleged that the casino had to withdraw these players when the “paying” players found out and threatened to pull out themselves. After representations from some of the players the freerollers were withdrawn.

In the run up to this I'm aware that the live satellites were running on Sunday afternoons, with NO seats guaranteed, so I assume they were not well attended. Contrast that with the 10 seats guaranteed in a live satellite at Walsall earlier in the year for their leg of the GUKPT - which actually generated 12 seats - and it demonstrates the lack of ambition or the fear of guaranteeing anything. Value for money is the key.

The nature of the game has changed for sure - I remember one long-time player talking of his nostalgic recollection of the days when he would travel some considerable distance for a £25 or £50 game. Now you can throw a stone in any direction and have a fair to middling chance of hitting a casino with a decent £50 or £100 comp.

The £1000 competitions such as Broadway's need to be attracting people nationwide, not just locally, and I believe that the independent casinos need to have a link up with an online network to drive satellite winners to their front door. If I can sit in my living room and play a satellite for Estonia, why can't I do the same for what should have been a major event at the Broadway, once a venue where everyone wanted to play? OK, they want the locals to play live, but they need to realise their target market nowadays is far wider than just the Birmingham postal codes. I guess they are just scared that if they promote the online game they may suffer in the long run, without acknowledging the fact that the game now operates on two levels which are totally complementary.

The success of the GUKPT and Gala/Coral tours has been due in no small part to the numbers generated by online satellites, and people will travel the length of the country for them. Part of the reason for the overlay at the big DTD event earlier this year - I think - was their reliance on a couple of online mega-satellites, rather than regular events, two or three times a week, run for at least a couple of months ahead of the event, as done by the more successful tours.

Although it was slightly disappointing to hear that the casino tried to cover their asses by having their own horses in the race, which was something DTD made a big thing about NOT doing in May, to the extent of (as I recall) someone linked to Rob withdrawing, lest any accusations be made that he was doing just that. But Broadway (and DTD) at least had the guts to put the guaranteed money up in the first place, so if the punters dont support the event aren't they entitled to try and win some of it back? That seems a lesser crime than paying players not to play, to avoid a guarantee being triggered, as has been alleged in relation to another event recently.

With £1000 events running every month somewhere in the country, and the GUKPT at the top of most people's lists, Broadway's Festivals will need something else to trigger the right volume of players next year, if they dont just decide to give up, which would be a real shame. Hopefully they will consider an online partnership.

Oneway Poker

Went to Junction 10 last night for the Oneway Poker tournament held to promote the Romanello family's new online poker site, as well as (theoretically) to celebrate the Walsall card room's 10th anniversary.

Great competition, £150 + £15 buyin, 10,000 chips, 45 minute clock, so plenty of scope for play, and it was supposed to be capped at 140 runners. They managed to squeeze a few more in for a capacity crowd, and with alternates the final total was 168 runners.

My table was pretty tight for a few hours, with the possible exception of Pete "The Bandit" Evans, sat on my immediate right, who featured on the original series of Late Night Poker, coming second to Devilfish. He claimed one pot last night showing 58 off suit, and eventually exited (shortly after me) when he disbelievingly ran pocket 6s into AA.

Not being quite so inventive as Pete, and with nothing much to play with, the only notable hand for me was when a Chinese lad lad raised UTG preflop, one caller in mid position, and I flatted with pocket Jacks. The flop was an attractive J 5 5, and the original raiser led out for 600, mid position folds, and I flat call. The turn is an Ace and matey leads out for another 900, which I repop to 2500, hoping he has hit his Ace, but he folds. I never got higher than about 12k in chips as I couldnt get going. Lots of nice playable late-position hands - but in early position, which had to be mucked, by and large, and the one time I got AA I was in the small blind - all fold to me, I min-raise hoping that he will fight back and he folds.

My worst spot came when the table "talker" raised in mid-position with what was essentially a bag of spanners, I called with AJ, hit the J on a seemingly innocuous flop, he bet 2800, I reraised to 5600, he called, and turned a straight. I slowed down after his call and he was trapping so it didnt prove fatal, but it was somewhat crippling. From going nice and steady I was down to 1675 chips and then had to go on a pushfest - four times in about six hands, luckily with decent cards but as it turned out, mostly behind, and sucking out - within 10 minutes I had AQ against a disbelieving AJ in the blinds and was back up to 8100 - a workable stack but still well below average as the numbers were falling as rapidly as a £5 rebuy.

After that little burst I went card dead again and tried a few things that didnt come off, so found myself down on 4500 and needing a couple of double ups with blinds now at 300/600. One of the pros at the table, Steve Jelinek, limped under the gun and all folded to me. I looked down at AsJs. Paused momentarily and pushed. Steve lazily started counting out his chips and made the call with pocket 4s. Two spades on the board gave me hopes of a flush but none of my outs came and I departed in about 67th spot I think. Good comp though, I enjoyed it. Dont know whether a raise and a bet on the flop might have been a better strategy in that last hand, but with an M of only 5 I was definitely in push or fold territory. He obviously knew he was flipping but had the chips to call.

Had a good chat with Antoni Romanello afterwards and spoke about an affiliate deal for the Oneway site, so hopefully will have a special deal available by the end of the week. Watch this space.

Trouble in Paradise

Saw a notice on a forum about the launch of the Paradise Poker Tour, run by the online poker site, which kicks off on London in December. I have a long standing hatred of the Paradise site, since their promotion of satellites for the Scottish Open in 2008. To recap briefly, they advertised a series of tournaments leading up to a super satellite, with 10 seats guaranteed, each winner getting a €2500 package for the event in August of last year. The Super satellite was only a €109 buy-in so it looked very good value, even more so when I was able to win into that via a feeder for only a few Euros. When the evening of the super satellite came, I settled down to play it, along with only another 151 runners, and was quite pleased at the prospect of an overlay of €8541 or €9900 if you exclude registration fees.

Strangely, at the appointed hour, the tournament failed to start. Their helpline person said there was a technical problem that they were working on, and to hang on, they expected it to commence soon. I thought, that's funny, every other game on the skin is kicking off on schedule, but for a while at least I believed the lie. About two hours later, my final call to the helpline got the response that "Oh, that's been cancelled now, players will receive an email tomorrow".

In fact, no email from Paradise was ever received, but I heard on the grapevine that a new satellite had appeared in the lobby the next evening. This time the buyin was €165, not €109, and there were NO guaranteed seats. Everyone had been given a €109 tournament token, plus a cash credit for €56, to make up the difference. I used the token for a sit and go, withdrew the cash, and watched amazed as only thirteen players started the rearranged satellite - which naturally generated no seats.

I thought that was a huge mistake by Paradise - their pathetic attempt to save the overlay would surely backfire on them? Giving away the €56 Euro credit to everyone cost them €8456, not to far away from what the overlay would have cost, so it just seemed so stupid. The bad publicity would hurt them, I thought. I fired off an email to them complaining about them welshing on their promotion, and pointing out that the positive publicity of having 10 players wearing their logos at the event in Edinburgh, one of whom may well have won it, would surely have been worth the comparatively small cost of the overlay. Paradise/Sportingbet never even bothered to reply to my email, the poker magazines made nothing of it, for fear of offending an advertiser, which pissed me off, and I vowed never to play on there again.

Until today. I admit I was weak and tempted by the thought of a tour event in London with a £500 buyin. So I shoved a few quid on the site and played a feeder satellite. During the game I had the good fortune to hit my second-ever Royal Flush, which was very nice. The only other time it has happened was about eighteen months ago, on a 12c/25c cash table, and it earned me about $30. On this occasion, it would be nice to report that I went on to win the satellite, but that didn't happen, due to some muppet who limped in the small blind. I looked down at AQ in the BB and shoved, "arsenal110" clearly thought it was worth calling with K6 off and duly hit a 6, which decimated my stack. In the next three hands I had Queens beaten by 9h 10h (all in pre-flop, he hit a flush on the turn), Q5 failed to outdraw pocket 6s (yes, just a suggestion of tilt there, I'll grant you), then Ks9s let me down, allin on a KKA flop, when I found myself up against KJ and A6. Maybe me and Paradise really should just leave each other well alone.

ECOOP Freeroller

A small reload on the Circus Poker skin, an iPoker site which I confess I am not in the habit of using, earned me a place in the first of their series of ECOOP V Freerolls, playing for three guaranteed seats in their Super Satellite, which will in 6 weeks or so offer a seat to the ECOOP Main Event, a package worth $1500, with a chance to win a share of $1,500,000. Not bad for nothing. From the Super Satellite there will be runners up prizes of seats to a couple of ECOOP V side events for 2nd and 3rd places.

Expecting the usual deluge of freerollers I was surprised to find only 47 players kicked off this event, but perhaps in view of the fact that you had to deposit SOMETHING in order to qualify it ruled out the Eastern European freeloaders who usually ensure that Latvia and Belarus are well represented in this sort of thing.

Opted for a "tight as a drum" and "milk the muppets" strategy, since I have learned the hard way that giving my opponents credit for having the ability to fold fourth pair is often an over-estimation of their grasp of the game, and until I think they have grasped this concept and embeodied it in their game I will continue to try to avoid being crippled or knocked out on a perfectly justifiable bluff. It's perfectly apparent that most continental players have only read as far as Chapter 2 "Top Pair Any Kicker", and trying to represent a straight or a flush will do little to get them to fold a weak, but winning, hand.

Enough of this, the short and sweet version of this story is that I have taken the first tentative steps towards achieving a monster payout by winning the freeroll and earning my place in the Super Satellite on 29th November, which will be a busy day, as I will have been to see the mighty Wolverhampton Wanderers humble Birmingham City that very afternoon.

The game itself was steady, I managed to amass a chunk of chips fairly early on, then took a serious dent when I ran QQ into the monster that is A7 off suit, pulling me back to the middle of the pack, but that sort of thing never bothers me much - I used to think "Oh, no, that's me blown it" and go hell for leather trying to recoup the lost chips, and my position. These days I dont give a toss, since it's only important to be in the first three at the end, and the chip leaders after two hours rarely seem able to achieve that miracle, probably because the loose way in which they acquire their chips in the first place leads to their ineviatble downfall, when they fail to change gears. That and a belief that that they have somehow donned a cloak of invincibility.

Noticed that Andy Gray, the cardroom manager at Stoke Circus, was also playing the event and was resonably well chipped up when we got down to two tables - took a look and he was the only active player on a table of sitouts!! Nicely balance by the iPoker network who usually manage to get the top three chip leaders grouped together before engineering a collision of biblical proportions. Or at least resulting in the utterance of the name of our Lord in less than celebratory fashion - "Jeeeeesus Chrrrrrrist"!.

Anyway down to the final table and Andy and I are pretty much swapping 2nd and 3rd places with around 10k apiece, as the chip leader, a Swede, has been sitting out for ages protecting his 20k stack. He came back into the game when he was blinded down to about 16k, at which point I went on a bit of a heater getting up to about 24k, and thought about sitting out myself. Not really. After robbing him of half his chips I took it easy on Andy on one or two occasions - folding to a reraise on a paired when he was probably at it, and laying down AQ on a 10 high board when again he was probably stealing with an overbet. I later had cause to regret this almost-soft play as once he got re-established he went after me big time! A lot of toing and froing when we were down to 5 left, but I had regained the chip lead by this stage. In the end ArhturDent1 in the SB made a move with 2-6 against juprok77 in the big blind, and got looked up with JJ - but the flop of 3 4 5 rainbow left the BB one of the two short stacked. Eventually the other short stack was first of the group to go, getting a call from Andy with Q7 against his JJ, only for Andy to flop two pair. Wasnt unhappy to see this guy go - he had made a couple of questionable plays against me in the early stages and had been the one to take a big chunk off me with A7 off before I put him back in his place.

Inevitably it was decided with a race. juprok77 UTG pushed with AdTd for about 4.5 k and I had to call with JJ, which held, despite two diamonds on the flop. So BlazingSaddler, ArthurDent1 and me made it through to the Super Satellite, which was nice.

Middleweight Champion

As a "Middleweight" in the Bluesquare VIP levels I was able to play the Middleweight $500 freeroll, which started with only 33 runners. Not too many familiar names in the game though Steve Holden (avillan) and toondavey40 (a GUKPT league regular) both made it to the final table as did I.

Steve kept pushing his short stack until he ran KT off into KK, and departed in 10th. Prior to the final table I got a nice double up through batsh1t, with KK up against his JJ - limped for 160 then pushed all in for 5700 odd to my raise to 480. I didn't take long to call and he failed to outdraw me, so I got a boost and he struggled for a little while thereafter but still made 7th place.

I built steadily with a steal here and there, gave a few away, sometimes my fault and sometimes bad outdraws, but ended up heads up with 77grant77 who played aggressively so I tried to do likewise. With a 3 to 1 chip advantage I pushed from the SB with JQ, he made the call with AT off, and I spiked a Q on the turn, after a 3-4-5 rainbow flop gave him a straight draw as well as being ahead. So he had to settle for $125, while I pocketed $200 for first. Not bad for nothing.

Dusk Till Dawn Visit at Last

Have never yet been to Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, so in view of my failure to qualify for their £250k Guaranteed last week, I decided to have a pop at the online qualifier last night for the £80K Guaranteed this weekend. A €20 tournament with 90 minutes of rebuys, and 50 - yes - 50 seats worth €375 (£336) guaranteed, and I figured if I qualified I could square it away with the girlfriend later. Dont know when I last got a chance to play on a Saturday (the GUKPT Newcastle weekend doesnt count cos I got knocked out on the Friday and just spent Saturday nursing a seriously bad hangover). Anyway, 227 starters, and I spent a long time grinding away with nothing. Had to take a rebuy at one stage when something I tried didn't quite come off and I ran into a non-believer when representing a flush (I got him later), but then settled into a decent routine and was around or slightly above average by the second break, at which point I took the add-on, because everyone else was bound to, and duly did. I was quite happy to be sitting in the top half of the field, because there weren't too many dropouts before the end of the rebuy stage, so a lot of play still left in the competition.

Eventually started to get opportunities to build my stack and got up to about 13k when the average was about 9k, then I got another chance to knock someone out when I had AK UTG+1, and the UTG player with about a third of my stack pushes. Mmmmh, I decide I need to win these races to improve in the competition and so push to isolate. If he has AA or KK he wouldn’t push unless he is very stupid or thinks the rest of the table are; if he has a lower pair and I miss, I’m below average, but no worse damage than that. Luckily I get it heads up with him and he showed AJ which didnt improve. Kicked on from there, I think the highest position I reached in the competition was 7th, with about 100 left, and I began to think I could probably fold my way to a seat. Although I didnt intend to try that, I must have jinxed myself with such thoughts because I went card dead for SUCH a long time it eventually became squeaky bum time as I kept falling down the leaderboard, and the blinds started to get huge to the point where it was a push or fold game for virtually everyone - 20th with 80 left - 36th with 64 left - 45th with 58 left - and every player was letting the clock run down, taking the maximum time before folding, in the hope that action on the other tables would see some more casualties.

It wasn't long before I was out of the magic 50 and desperate for something to push with. With a monster stack sitting two places to my right, who was raising just for fun, I had hoped for something with a little meat on the bones before I put my tourney down the pan, especially having bubbled for this tourney back in January. With just over 10K left in my stack, and blinds at 2000/4000 with a running ante of 400, I should have pushed long before this situation but really had been dealt nothing that I could put any faith in preflop, particularly in the face of a big raise from mid position (the “Hijack” apparently having moved to about seat 5!), and I finally find myself in the BB with K4os. So, naturally, all fold to the big stack on the button who raises to 18k, as expected, and the SB hides under the duvet with his eyes closed, also as expected. If I fold I have 6k left and will lose 2400 of that in the SB, and within a hand or two I'll have less than 1BB, so I'm pushing anyway, but a non-participating player types "odds" in chat box, to try and entice me to play it, for his benefit naturally, and I dont like that - I have found quite a bit of that sort of speechplay on DTD chat - but in fact he’s not wrong, I’m getting 3/1 and since they say you’re never that much of a dog with “any two” (the liars) I'm pushing anyway - so I let rip with both barrels of my spud gun and find the original raiser has JQos. Bugger me, I'm ahead. Then I hit my 4 on the low rainbow flop, even better. Sadly the turn and river complete a straight on the board so its a split pot. Survival is good enough at this stage, and that small profit from splitting the SB and the antes is enough to catapult me back up to 46th!

On the next hand i get pocket 9s in the SB, and all fold to the button who decides to fire it all in and he has me covered by 39 chips. Having just achieved a modicum of safety, he probably expected me to fold, but I was having none of that as there is nearly 12k in the middle before his bet, so just under 24k in total, so with just under 7k behind, once again I’m getting over 3/1 to call, so a medium pair is a godsend, and I have to ship it. I certainly wasn’t intending to faff around for another orbit only to find myself in the same position as before, so in goes my stack and I'm relieved to see he has pocket 7s rather than overcards, and my 9's hold, much to his despair. There followed a 2 minute rant about how that’s typical, the site hates him, he can’t win anything, always gets set up, been the same for months. Poor puppy. Grow a pair. So now I'm back up to over 33k, in about 14th position, and my seat should be safe. With 51 left, bubble time, I'm rooting for Stokie player Kev Bloor who is all in on his Big Blind on another table with about 2900 chips. The whole world is watching ..... well, everyone left in the tourney …… there is talk of collusion when another friend from AWOP, who is on the SB on that table, says he "can always fold". But someone else on the table doesn't like that kind of friendly talk and raises. Martin folds his 10 2 in the SB, and it is revealed that the raiser has AKs, with Kev holding 93 offsuit. Delighted to see Kev hit a straight to survive, unbelievably, and within a minute or two there is a car crash on another table and the bubble is burst. Instead of finishing, the game continued, so we had to keep going all-in till it finished, which is always a pain (and why do people fold their hands in that situation?), but after the all-in fest I ended up in the same position - 14th.

So, roll on Saturday, as I am looking forward to my first visit to Dusk Till Dawn having heard nothing but good things about the place. Shit, better tell the girlfriend. I'm just a little worried that they may have overstretched themselves recently, with big guarantees for their tournaments, resulting in big overlays, and big guarantees in the satellites into those tournaments too. There were 50 seats up for grabs last night, 227 runners, and another overlay. It cant go on - people may say the owner has loads of money, but it's not a bottomless pit and unless he's running the place as a tax loss operation he won't - indeed he can't - keep subsidising it forever. The place has earned itself a huge reputation, so I dont know why they go and shoot themselves in the foot with this apparent financial folly. For the £250k GTD "Main Event" last week, they clearly expected a better turnout, rather than having to underwrite a £70k overlay, and people have said perhaps the timing was wrong, but more importantly I think they relied on two big Super Satellites - one in April and one in May - each with 50 seats guaranteed - to pull in the crowds, and assumed the guaranteed prize pool would ensure direct buy-ins from all the usual suspects - surely enough top professionals (who weren't potless, or in Vegas already) would fancy their chances against a big field of amateurs? Well, apparently not. When the numbers failed to materialise they put on another "last chance" super satellite on the Bank Holiday Monday only two days before the event was due to start, but that smacked of desperation. So in three Super Satellites I think I'm right in saying they guaranteed 115 seats. But if they had spread those seats over two or three months at the rate of say 10 or 15 a week, they may have had a better chance of covering their costs, especially if they had opened up the satellites to the whole Boss network, rather than just their own skin. (If we can play for events in Estonia, or wherever, surely the whole of Europe could have a crack at coming here?)

They announced the three events in their Grand Slam series early enough, so why in God's name did they not follow the well-trodden route that Grosvenor and Gala use, of having two or three Super Satellites per week, pitched at say £50, £100, and £200, with loads of £5, £10, and £20 feeders into those for players with a limited bankroll? At least the registration fees from the feeders and satellites would generate some cash and may help to make up some of any defecit, and people would no doubt get into the way of playing them every week, the way they have with the established tours. Nothing to stop them throwing a "50 Seats Guaranteed" mega-satellite into the schedule somewhere if they feel like it, but plenty of people play for GUKPT seats with only one or two seats guaranteed, so why wouldn't they do that for DTD, regardless of where they live? It's no harder to get to Nottingham than, say, Thanet, Bristol, or Newcastle ....

Since everyone seem to be agreed (apart from a few Londoners who would get a nose-bleed if they came north of Luton) that this has the potential to be the best poker venue in Europe, it would be a real shame to see it fail as a result of less than perfect marketing. Let's hope they get it right for the next one in September, and start some satellites and feeders before the end of this month.