Ed's Midlands Masters

Ed's account of his tourney.



My first hand in the comp was KQ clubs, christ I thought, didn't want any playable hands for at least the first hour. So, called a very small raise and had a look at the flop, nothing at all for me, another bet and I bowed out.

Third hand was QQ, oh bloody hell!! Bet 3x the BBand had a couple of callers, flop brought a K and an A so that was the end of that.

So, played a reasonable amount of hands in the next 5 hours or so, even had the luxury of pocket Aces at one point where I ended up all in against 88 and luckily they held out.

At my high point though I was only holding just over 20k in chips so never had a chance to try some bullying.
Anyway, the wee small hours had arrived and I was feeling confident and basically just waiting for the cards. I'm on the big blind, J9 off, nothing doing until Lucy Rokach in late ish position, she chucks in 4x my blind, I thought for a bit and had a good feeling about it, coupled with the fact I convinced myself she was stealing, so I put in the extra 1.8k to call, flop 9J6, oh yess I thought to myself, Lucy throws in a pot sized bet and I decide it's time to take a stand, all in and Lucy calls, now at this stage I'm thinking maybe AJ so still got her covered. WRONG, she turns over her pocket 6's to my disgust, turn river no good and out I go.

Was a tremendous experience which I thoroughly enjoyed, never at any point did I feel intimidated. Finished 63rd so pretty much in the middle, considering it was my first big event I'm fairly happy with how it went.

Thanks to Joe and the gang, brilliant bunch of people.All the people who made the effort to come along, Brian, Diane, Andy, Sam, Big Andy.

First Ever Live Game

Well went to the Cincinnati Club in Glasgow. Meant to be a £10 freezeout but it actually had one rebuy. 5000 starting chips. I did okay, didn't post or fold out of turn, pretty much managed to post the right blinds at the right time etc, all the things that had worried me.Played very tight for most of the time, allowing me to take pots in position quite easily. One hand I was chasing a straight, I really struggle to see if I have hit a straight if it is at the top end, too many smiley faces!!! Anyway I had an ace in my hand and there was one on the board too which confuses me more. I am betting with trepidation against one other guy who is acting the same, there is also a possible flush on the board so it turns out to be a split pot as we both have Ace high straight. He thought I too was worried about the flush but I wasn't I just wasn't sure if I had actually made the straight!!!!!

Everyone was really nice although there was a bit of aggro between a couple of guys on my table, was quite funny. One was drunk and the other was all everything must be done right and had the clock on the drunk one. I liked that table as they kept me right, next table was a wee bit nerdier but still all very nice. I steadily built my chip stack until after 3 hrs I had about 12,000. I'm sitting with Q9 on the button and call, flop 779, I raise, one other left, turn 9, I make a small raise again, thinking I must keep the guy in the pot and not scare him off, he puts me all-in so i figure he's got 7's full of 9's. He turns over 77. I just never saw it coming.