28 October 2009

Tonight was my second and final attempt to play for a seat into the final for a chance to win a seat in the GukPT Main Event via the AWOP Satellite event. The format was the same as last week (£25 buy-in with add-on’s of £20).

As with last week the room was full with 20 players, most of whom I know from the Blackpool circuit. I lost my first set of chips (2000) when I pushed with 5,5 and got called by two over cards. From my experiences last week I knew I needed to win the 50-50 races early to build a decent chip stack during the buy-in period. Following this I lost again with another medium pair (8-8). At least this week I was picking up playable hands and it would be a matter of time before a couple held up. As with my recent play I was folding pre-flop rag Aces and other hands that have been getting me in trouble. During level 2 (30 minute clock) I picked up A,A and pushed All-In for the third time, this time I picked up two callers and my Aces held. This hand gave me a decent chip stack of over 10,000 and during the rest of the re-buy period I focused on low risk stack building. At the end of the buy-in period I had 16,000 chips and was well chipped up compared to most of the other players on my table.

During the short break in play I re-evaluated my play and using the knowledge gained from last weeks event I decided to once more only play premium hands in position as the short stacks would be looking to double through.

When play resumed, as I predicted, the short stacks had to resort to ‘All-in’ poker, I lost one race when I had 10,10 beaten by K,Q but I also won a couple of smaller pots to maintain my stack. I maintained my chip stack without really building on it and kept out of trouble until 10 players remained. The final table was fairly uneventful apart from the ‘bubble hand’ (6 seats available, 7 players left). This saw 3 players All-in with K,7 diamonds, against a medium A against A,A. The two players holding the A chopped the pot when the wheel showed and Mick exited in 7th with a cash saver.

Following this there was an interesting discussion about folding A,A pre-flop in this situation. Whilst the A,A could not be knocked out in this hand, loosing would have left the player short stacked in the event of the other two players chopping the pot. As usual when this topic is discussed opinions vary. Would I fold pre-flop? The answer is simple – it depends what is at stake in the circumstances and I would make my decision then and only then.

The final is to be played on 4th November at AWOP HQ with 12 players having qualified by right plus two more buying directly in.

Brian weebrick Clarke
Mick schoolbully Tetlow
Linton Holling
Carl Pickles
John The Viper Prescott
Gez Hilton
John Hare
Will McMurray
Tim France
Paul Murphy
Ste Haley
Joe Egerton

Direct buy-ins so far:-

John "riverasusual" Millar
Mick Ash

**UPDATE 30/10/09**

4 More players have bought directly in making a total of 18. This means there will be 4 Main Event seats to play for.