So this week I was in Manchester for the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, debuting as a live tournament player for Absolute Poker. I had played one of these events before after satelliting in the night before it was due to start, so at least had some experience playing this particular tourney. It was a good structure with 10k starting chips and an hour clock and I am finally getting used to playing a deep-stack now after years of sub 30BB starting stacks in pubs around London! Another bonus was that this meant a return trip to Manchester for the first time since I graduated three years ago, and was looking forward to seeing the old town (and friends!) once again.

The first hand of the day was rather unexpected and certainly got the blood pumping for one who tries to take the first level very slowly. I was dealt 10s in mid-position and UTG limped and then called my 3x raise. The flop came down a perfect 10-5-4 with 2 diamonds, woohoo!! UTG checked so I made it 2/3 pot and they raised 4X that. I flat called and the turn came another 5 - the only time a young lady can be happy to say she "filled out". Mr UTG then checked called my 1/2 pot bet on the turn and check folded the river muttering about how he shouldn't bluff so early on. Fine by me matey.

The next few hours passed unremarkably, with me exercising the patience that Annie's lessons had taught when it all went card-dead for three very frustrating hours. After ten hours when we'd lost about 60% of the field my stack had dwindled (partially due to being a bit passive on a few occasions and the rest due to getting bugger all in the way of cards) and I have to confess to getting a bit impatient...

I was in the SB and the guy on the button with a short stack (half of mine which was about 18BB) made a standard raise when it was folded round to him. In line with every other time he did this, he made it 4x BB to go. I was utterly convinced he was at it AGAIN and so re-pushed him all in... only for him to flip over Kings. Oops.

Therefore I was now in the disaster zone of 9BB and the very next hand got dealt A-10 diamonds on the button. Once again it was folded round to me so of course I pushed, only for the ****** BB to dwell up and call for half his own stack with, wait for it, A-7 hearts.

Why would I call him a ****** BB you may ask? Because he then proceeded to catch every damn bleeding Heart under the sun to send me packing to the rail with only one hour to go before the end of the day. Arrrgh. Still, in hindsight my big error was getting impatient and playing the previous hand like a moron, but it doesn't make it any the less frustrating! However, I did then take the next day to go and behave like a student again, so not all was lost...

Oh, and here's an interview from the event should you be interested. Warning, I prattle on a lot!

2 Comments:

 tr said...

You are cute and have a pleasant writing style. What do you think about the Standard Model of Cosmology and do you think LIGO or LISA will detect gravity waves?

May 16, 2008 5:16 PM  

 Liv said...

Thank you. Interestingly, I actually wrote my dissertation on the Detection of Gravitational Waves! I believe that if we're ever going to detect them successfully the LISA is the best way to go - LIGO covers too small a distance and measuring vibrations of that scale on Earth with all that seismic interference is gonna be tricky!

May 27, 2008 4:01 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home