Big Slick

Yesterdays tournament can be summarised nice and easy...

1st 3 levels accumulated chips nicely. Well over average.

Then:

Picked up big slick on the button.

3x raise.

One caller. Flop comes 5c,6s, 10s. I c-bet, villain calls.

Turn comes Qs, villain bets so I take a peek at my AK and the Ace is a spade, so I call, I can't fold right?

River is a nice black Ace..of clubs. His top pair has just been nailed on the river right?

He ships and I call.

Villain flips over Q 10 spades and that'll be me. No bad beat, no complaints, just nice easy busto.

Bah.

Europe To Take On Las Vegas - Heads Up

First minister for Scotland, Alex Salmond is keen to establish Scotland as a gambling destination if he can win Scottish independence in the forth coming elections.
His masterplan is to give tax breaks to high earners and embark on an ambitious super casino building plan and also to continue with the zero tax rate on winnings to try and establish a European rival for Las Vegas.
To draw attention to the plan he has had this eyecatching 4 storey poker chip constructed in the centre of the Scottish capital at a cost of $3.5 million dollars.

- Blip News Agency

Las Vegas Underground.

A fascinating 3 part documentary about the homeless people living in the tunnels under las vegas, and also shows the "urban historian" sneaking into the newly built Fontainebleau, which was never finished when the owners ran out of money. Its the tallest building in Vegas and the two guys filming it scale the 68 storey building only to get to the top and its hammering down with rain.
Part One Part Two Part 3 - Scaling the (derelict)Fontainebleau.

At The Races

The £10 + £20 + £20 at the Genting Casino in Edinburgh is apparently the busiest Monday game in Scotland.

There were 106 entries when I went, with a prize pool of a cool £5,000 exactly. They also allow reregistrations if you bust out early, which swells the prize pool a bit. I managed to blow my first entry before the end of level 3 after a couple of painful hands.
A limp on the button with q8 off was rewarded with a flop of j,10, 9. Not bad, though there were 2 diamonds and I had none. It was checked to me, I bet and get 2 callers. The turn is a king of diamonds, so I slow down a bit as me thinks someone is flushing and I check. River is a q of diamonds? The old lady bets and my near enough the nuts hand is now in the muck.
Couple of hands later I 3 bet pocket tens into Aces - ouch, and my final add on is polished off when I try to exert a bit of pressure with my suited AJ only for the button to repop with AK and I,m toast.
I re register, and manage to accumulate a decent stack, the blinds are at 1200/600/100, when the lady to my right raises utg to 4500. I look down at suited big slick and raise it up to 9500, the rest of the table bails out and then after a bit of posturing, my lady shoves all in for a bit more than my whole chip stack. I call and she flips over queens.
First card out is a queen, and I,m out.
I,m happy enough to take these flips alot more this year and my results seem to show that aggression isn,t really working for me though. If I,d flatted, missed flop I could have got away from it, (on the other hand had I won it, I would have forgotten about the hand and moved onto the next).
I see so many rocks who don't do the jam-any-two theory when they're under 10bb who seem to fold there way down to 2 or 3 blinds until they pick up a playable hand and end up at the final table, Whats the right approach? The eternal question...Vegas beckons, gotta make a decision.

Dragonara Casino - Malta

 "The Dragonara Casino is a 19th Century Palace built by the Marquis Scicluna as his Summer residence on a narrow peninsula of St Julians, Malta. It is a spectacular Mediterranean seaboard location and forms part of the wider original palace complex.
 - From the Dragonara Casino website




The scale of this place is nothing comparable to Las Vegas, but this is probably the most impressive place I've played at, mainly because it's actually real IE the building is a couple of hundred years old.



 I only played a couple of tournaments here which didn't go particularly well..
 The last one I remember particularly well, we were down to the last 6 or 7 players and I was at the 10-15bb level.
 I was in the big blind with pocket Aces and I was pretty sick to see everyone chucking there cards away until it got round to the small blind. He raised for about a 3rd of his stack. He had only slightly more chips than me and was in  a the same position as me, he either doubled up or started getting blinded away with the blinds starting to get heavy. His raise had pretty much made him pot committed. so after doing the obligatory Hollywood routine, I jammed all my chips in the middle and I was delighted to see him confidently insta-call and flip over AK of spades. He let out a sort of yelp when he saw my pocket aces and had his head in his hands cursing loudly. I was 87% favorite to scoop the lot.
The dealer duly delivered the flush on the river, so I put my jacket on and left the room to the sounds of the villain whooping and banging the table with delight.

Min cash

I managed a small cash at the monday night game. 10th place finish from the 120 players. Had some nice hands enroute. Best paid was 4s v a10 on 10 4 8 j 10 board. If only poker was always like this. At the later levels it started to turn into abit of a crap shoot, and I was down to about 7bb when I shipped pre with k 10 utg when we were at 6 players on the table. Called by 7's and that was that. £80 paid, £50 entry. Modest profit.

Stone Faced

Golden Nugget London

 I went in for the Saturday tournament. The tournament was pretty lame, I think there were only 20 players or so, and I never cashed, but I got a seat at the cash table after, which was  a pretty chilled game.
The thing I remember best about it was the guy a couple of seats to my left who had sunglasses on and a total stone faced expression. It was early in the morning probably 4 - 5 am just before they closed up and everyone was pretty knackered, I'd put quite a hefty raise in on a total bluff hoping to get the guy to fold. He sat there cool as a cucumber for the longest I can remember dwelling on the bet, with me clearly about to lose a chunk if he calls. I'm getting more and more convinced I was busted. After a pause of what must have been about 5 minutes, one of the guys at the table said "I think he's fallen asleep" and nudged him. He promptly woke up and folded his hand. Ha ha.
It was a nice feeling walking through the deserted streets afterwards to Kings Cross with a pocket full of notes. Lasted about 2 minutes on the train before I fell asleep and woke up at at home. Perfect

Paris Wagran Club

A summary of the key hands enroute to biggest win of the year so far - in chronological order:

Flopped 2 pr v turned set
Raised pre 10s hit set 3 all ins tripled up
26k at break
Turned nut flush v 2 players well paid
K 10 hit 10 v 2nd pair
Ks utg limped round ace on flop fold to a j
Flopped set turned house v str and 2 pr big pot
Raised pre ak got jammed on by 10s laid down too much chips
Raised limped button in sb with aq suited button shipped I call hit a on river v 9s
Short stack shoves 5bb I call in sb bb ships I fold for good chunk of stack -
Made final table with 65k
Went on a bit of a heater, finally flopped a set v a flopped two pair for the villain, and a pile of euros heading over to me. Beautiful.
C'est magnifique!