Likey's Blog

Yep, it’s been nearly a year since I last wrote a blog entry so I’ll try make a better effort going forward.

I haven’t been that productive this year (more on that in a future blog entry) and as such I didn’t play many online tournaments this year, however I did have the urge to play some live tournaments at the International Club. There were a couple of festivals earlier this year so I got involved by winning a few seats via the satellites. One festival was in June called The Super Stack Series of Poker where I played the £500 MTT (35,000 starting chips with 50min clock), and the other one was the G.S.O.P. in August where I played the 3day £300 event (22,000 starting chips with 90min clock). Both were great structures but I didn’t cash in either of them so FMTL!!

Just when you thought the structure couldn’t be beaten, Barry Martin mentioned a couple of months ago that he’s planning to do a tournament with a 100,000 starting stack! At first I thought he was joking and a group of us were joking about the structure saying stuff like how we could 8-bet fold if blinds started at 25/50. As it turns out, it really did happen and the club even introduced a new batch of tournament chips to replace the old which look really good! Although it sounded like a novelty at the time it was actually a big success – over 180 runners entered last weekend and I was there on Monday to rail Day 2.

The place was buzzing and even saw a few familiar faces that hardly come to the club any more, one was Laurence Houghton aka rivermanl/whatariver1 who is a superstar online but in my opinion is cursed in live tournaments. The curse continued as he got near the final table, his AA couldn’t hold against A6 and after rebuilding his stack he busted out with AA again to a sick beat where he flopped top set against Rob Payani’s TT!

Not only did Rob knock him out of the tournament, he managed to knock out 2 other people within those 4 hands during the bubble and made the final table as chip leader – going from 700K to 4M chips must have felt insanely good! In Day 3 he ended runner up but pocketed over £11,000 missing out on the trophy and just over £19,000 for 1st which went to Charlie ‘Coca-Cola Kid’ Vanka. Not bad for a £350 buy-in tournament!

Being the Satellite King that I am, I entered the satellite in hope of a seat but no luck this time so I didn’t play. I am really looking forward to participating in the next festival where hopefully I’ll have at least one 100,000 chip in my possession.

A quick mention for Sy “SykoSy” Zulhayir who recently joined as a Gutshot Team Pro so congrats! We chatted a couple of times but from what I can tell, he’s one of only a few who really understand both cash and tournaments to a high level. For someone who is mortgage-free with a 3 bedroom house in London as well as a BMW all paid for by poker – he’s done well! Which does confuse me because there’s no reason for him to be a Gutshot Team Pro but as long as he’s around I can pick his brain so I don’t mind.

On EMS forum, I’d like to mention that Bas had tweaked his tournament game earlier this year and since done extremely well. There’s another member called GAWA9 who has also improved immensely this year and no doubt he’ll keep on crushing. How he plays over 1500 tournaments a month is beyond me so big kudos to him – especially as he seems to be making $20K+ profit a month for several months in a row now! So for those who moan saying how they run bad in tournaments, well remember that sample size is one of the factors so keep on grinding and as long as you play a good game you should get rewarded.

One point I want to add – whilst writing this at work I realise I have a live tell, it’s actually funny because I realise it happens every time and I can’t help doing it! When someone walks past and I think they may be looking at my monitor screen I would touch my hair or subtly scratch my head. LOL!

I’ve not heard anyone use the term ‘Fuck My Tournament Life’ so hopefully it’ll go viral.

Good luck at the tables.
Likey

Post a Comment