Responsible Gaming

£100k 'second chance' Poker Classic Tournament – Day 1 Report

Posted by Waldorf 1 on 05 Nov 2008 at 11:11

Our intrepid reporter, Waldorf1, spent the weekend getting close to the action at the £100k’ Second Chance’ Poker Classic tournament. Read below for his blow by blow account of Day 1.

Day 1

Saturday 1st November 2008

12 noon

The doors opened and 200+ players flooded into Circus Casino at Star City, Birmingham to register their seats for an almost unique tournament in UK poker history. With a heady mix of online and land-based qualifiers, the great and the good from the world of poker and a sprinkling of curious locals, the £100k Second Chance Poker classic was only an hour away from starting. The decision to allow alternates saw a further 17 names added to the list.

1pm

Shuffle Up and Deal, Bonnie issued the order and the event was underway. As always late comers were still searching for their seats...most of them pros. Why do they do that and risk losing chips by being blinded out? With a decent list of Pros already seated, including Lucy Rokach, Stutter Rutter, Mickey Wernick, Surinder Sunar and Jon “Skallie” Kalmar, (who finished 5th 2007 World Series of Poker Main event), we were still wondering whether Dave Colclough and Mark Goodwin would actually be taking their seats.

Looking suitably sharp Mark arrived about 30 minutes into the event, with a very hassled looking Dave Colclough eventually taking his seat at about 1:45pm. By this point Lucy Rokach had busted out, but this intrepid reporter was busy moving boxes so missed the action!

CircusPoker.co.uk sponsored player, the stunning Daiva Barauskaite on Table 1, was looking confident in her first major poker event as a CircusPoker.co.uk player, grinding out some blind stealing as she waited for a decent hand. Sat next to Daiva was Snoopy of Blondepoker fame, with his trademark Snoopy dog card protector – he should have been here, behind this screen writing this report!

Our ‘Faking It’ victim Adam Ralph from Nuts Magazine, was sat on table 20 with Stuart Rutter and Dave Colclough. Adam was very chatty when he was playing online, regularly goading players and generally winding the other players up, it will be interesting to see whether he does the same here, with this table.

1:05pm

Snoopy is quickly into the action, eliminating the first player of the day when his pocket 3s turned into quad 3s on the river to beat a full house Aces and 3s.

4pm

No more alternates. 17 players eliminated and 17 alternates were seated. £108,500 total prize pool and £33,634 first prize...plus a whole stack of ranking points available.

4:40pm

Adam Ralph is out! Sat comfortably with 11500 chips, second hand after the break gets dealt King King, player 1 raised to 500, player 2 re-raised to 1000, Adam re-raised to 2000, the player 1 folded. Flop comes Ace Ace 6, with a sensible 1500 bet to see if his opponent has got an Ace, he gets raised to 3000, Adam folded and is indeed shown the Ace. This was a nice, but very expensive lay down. Now with about 8000 chips left he gets involved in a few hands and loses another 1000 chips cheaply. Then he is dealt pockets 10s, this will do on big blind and he raised to 600, 1 caller, Stuart Rutter. The flop comes Ace Queen 6, another 600 bet from Adam sees Stuart flat calling. The turn card was a rag, Adam checks, giving the initiative to Stuart, who bets the pot and Adam folds. Now down to 6000 chips in a steady downward spiral, the last hand Adam needed was a middling pocket pair, along they come, 8s.

Rather than raising them (isn’t hindsight great) he limps in against El Blondie (Dave Colclough) and flop came Jack 7 4 rainbow (where the cards are all different suits), Adam checks, Dave checks, the turn is a rag, Adam shoves his chips in, Dave calls instantly and flips a pair of 7s. There are only 2 cards left in the deck that can help Adam, and they stayed in the deck.

Like a wounded melon, Adam is now rather pathetically sat with about 1200 chips left. King 10 suited in the pocket, second last to act, All In was the only move, he’s called by a player with Ace 4 off suit. The flop was like a launderette (full of rags) and the Ace stood up. He’s out! Rubbish. Well at least we now have a proper journalist to do the reporting! No we don’t he’s off to play a cash game.

4:50pm

A quick sit rep with Daiva sees her with 8000 chips, one hand misplayed where she bet on the river against 2 players with King Queen when there was a straight draw out. Won a big hand where Queens stood up against Jacks to move her to 11000 chips. Gets dealt pocket rockets (Aces) raises 800, big blind calls flop comes Queen Queen 6 two diamonds, reasonably good flop, she thinks. Big Blind bets 900, Daiva thinks this is a test bet and raises to 2500 to tell him she’s not messing about and she’s got a hand. Big Blind moves immediately All In. He wants her to call, but he moved too quickly. Daiva sees sense and folds the Aces. This loses her 3000 chips. Big Blind initially played the hand well, the 900 bet was excellent, but then he spoils this great play with his immediate All In, he probably should have spent a long time thinking and then flat called. The folding of Aces was a good move, but she fell into the trap set by the Big Blind.

5:15pm

Mark Goodwin busts out with Queens being beaten by Ace Jack, with an Ace on the flop. 172 players left in the tournament. United beat Hull 4-3 and Stoke turn over Arsenal, get in. Chelsea smash Sunderland 5-0. We need Spurs to turn over Liverpool, and it will be a decent day.

5:50pm

162 players left, average chip stack is 15400 and the Baltic Blonde has 9000 chips left. Text message from Adam: “Quite like this cash game lark. Already up 220 pounds” Obviously his bad luck has run out.

7pm

Get IN! Spurs score with 1 minute left and beat Liverpool 2-1.

7:30pm

143 players left, Table 20 is looking like our “TV table” with Mickey Wernick, Stuart Rutter and Dave Colclough all seated together...but...wait....important news comes from Table 1, the Baltic Blonde...is out.

Here is the sorry tale of woe, the full story since the last update.

After having her Aces busted, Daiva didn’t play many hands and sat back and waited, made a couple of small chips improvements with Ace 7 and Ace 9 building her stack to 9000. Then, again, Aces, I mean how many times does that happen to you? Exactly, and here she is with two sets of Aces in about an hour. Daiva is last to act and her dream action take place when Fabio de Francesco in an early position raises to 900, 1 player in the middle of the action takes ages and calls,

Daiva’s move is to raise to 2700 – a nice bet. Fabio this time takes an age to make his mind up and folds, later claiming he has folded Jacks, a good move if indeed he did have Jacks. The other player in the hand folds and claims he had 10s. A good piece of strong hand protection but the typical “you don’t win big pot with Aces situation”

Feeling happy and full of confidence, 12000 chips ish....couple of hands later and she is dealt Ace 10 suited, not the best starting hand, but in late position, loads of limpers including Daiva, flop comes Queen 10 9, two diamonds. Checks all round. Turn: 9, three checks, small 450 raise – Daiva’s thinking this is an odd bet, massive pot very small bet, is he trapping? So she calls. Wise move and there is one other caller. River; 5 and it’s a diamond, we’ve now got the flush possibility on the flop. 1200 bet from the trapper, Daiva folds. We’ll never know, but this correspondent thinks he had nothing.

The very next hand, first to act (next to big blind) and she’s only gone and got pocket cowboys (Kings). With 9000 chips, 150/300 blinds she raises to 1100, folds round to big blind who is the smallest stack with only 4000, he take a short time and flat calls. Bizarre. Eyebrows are raised all round the table. Surely it’s a fold or All In move? Anyway the flop is Ace rag rag rainbow, big blind checks. Weak. Daiva’s thought is to go All In as there is no point putting a 1500 bet, to find out where she is, if he has an Ace he is going to raise anyway, and to be honest she’d call as it gives her good pot odds. So – strong play – Daiva puts him All In. Immediate call shows Ace 7 suited, turn and river are rags. Daiva’s Kings are beaten by his Aces and she is down to 5000. Could she have played it differently, I think I’d have done the same.

Not so confident now. Blinds are 200/400 and she’s got 5000 chips left, seriously short stacked. Then it’s dinner break. Some to time to reflect.

Back in the game, focus. Become aggressive on this tight table, see if I can double up is the mindset of the Baltic Blonde, so here we go.

Daiva gets Ace Jack in an early position, pushes All In, 4500 in the pot. Folds round to mid position who thinks about it for a long time, stacking his chips, counting them out, continually watching Daiva’s reaction. Lays it down, claiming he had 9s, Daiva collects her chips back plus 800 including the Antes. Good start.

But.

Couple of hands later in Big Blind, 4200 chips left, Queen 2 off suit. What does she do? It checks round to Daiva, she checks. Flop Queen 3 4, Small Blind (chip leader) checks, Daiva throws in 1000, button folds. Small blind asks Daiva “Do you want me to raise?” a nice probe, Daiva tells him “you can do what you want” – we’ll come back to this error in a minute. He pushes All In, Daiva calls, he flips Queen 6, the turn and river are useless and she’s out to a higher kicker. A SIX? A real shame.

How did she play it? Well, let’s look at that last hand. Waldorf1 would have done exactly the same. The only chance she had of being able to scare him off the pot was if she’d bet pre flop. After proving to the table that she wouldn’t slow play a big hand, she couldn’t get away with scaring him off the pot post flop. He’s got top pair and he knows she hasn’t got Kings or Aces. She had no choice, he had no choice, and ultimately the Queen on the flop was the last card she wanted to see.

So we are sat at an empty Let It Ride table with Daiva and John (her lucky boyfriend, not lucky in the gambling sense, but in the sense that he is this stunningly attractive poker player’s fella)

There were some errors along the way; maybe Waldorf1 would have lasted a bit longer with her cards. I certainly wouldn’t have misplayed the King Queen hand and I certainly wouldn’t have been talking to players whilst I was under pressure in a hand. When asked by the Small Blind what she wanted him to do, she should have ignored him, this type of question is only designed to do one thing, and that’s see if he can get a tell by the tone of her voice. So SHUT UP!! Don’t speak!
So what is the plan now? Three Card Poker apparently and maybe some Roulette...good luck to them.

8:30pm

110 left. A quick look around the poker room reveals that Yucel Emingolu, aka “Mad Turk” on table 6 is the massive chip leader with about 100,000 chips, the average chip stack at this point is 19,700. Sat next to Mad Turk is Ken Clark a qualifier from Manchester. Ken is a regular on the North West poker scene and qualified online at Circuspoker.co.uk with a freeroll token earned in one of our famous Penny Poker events. Basically it cost Ken 1p to win £470 cash and a £550 seat in this tournament, talk about value! Ken’s got 24500 chips and he is my new focus. Let’s hope the luck of Daiva and Adam does not get passed by me to Ken.

Let’s go and check on Adam, he’s gone quiet... He’s £350 up! I’d say he was well on his way to winning his seat cost back, but then I remember that I bought him in anyway!

9:00pm

A quick chat with Dave Brannan from Living It Loving It on the way down the escalators, he’s about average chipped and is going to be making some moves in the next hour as the average chip stack is 20000 and the blinds go to 600/1200 with 100 antes at the next level. This means that each pot will have at least 2800, there could be some heavy All In action on the horizon. Dave can be my second focus player, everyone knows him and he certainly talks a good game.

9:02pm

Adam Ralph comes bounding over, he’s £625 up and rather than sitting down at the £10 Rebuy starting at 9:30pm, he’s off back to his hotel to watch Match of the Day. He’s a United fan and wants to see the 4-3 win over Hull....but still.....come on man, where are your balls?

9:04pm

I take a stroll round the poker room and see that El Blondie is no longer with us...not like that, he’s been knocked out. And yet again “Kate Aidie” here has missed the story, talk about rubbish journalism.
I do however notice Mickey Wernick sat with over 40,000 chips in front of him, he looks rather pleased, I think he might have knocked out Dave Colclough, I vow to find out.

9:20pm

Surinder Sunar is out, I see him walking away, not looking too happy with himself, what’s the story? Table 3, Mad Turk (now with about 140k) and James Browning (20k) are debating whether James should call Turk’s 4000 bet, James folds it and Mad Turk shows Ace King suited. James reveals that he knocked Surinder out, his King 7 with King on the flop held up against Surinders straight and flush draw. Sat next to James is Christine Evans, a Betfred Poker Ladies tour player. Christine qualified online with Circuspoker.co.uk, but Fred is paying her hotel bill along with a couple of other players. Looks like the arrival of Mad Turk has put the cat firmly amongst the pigeons of table 3 as he continues to bully the pot, as I walk away I hear the now familiar shout of “come on bet, I will call you”...brilliant.

9:45pm

91 players left, Turk is still chip leader with approximately 150k chips. Ken’s on the same table as Dave Brannan, both sat with around 20k chips, but both talking a different game. With Ken it’s about patience, he’ll get some cards eventually, with Dave it’s a bullish “I’m soon going to be doubling up or going home”, let’s see who has the best strategy over the next few hours. With the blinds now at 600/1220 with those 100 antes, each pot is worth a good amount before a flop has been seen. Ken and Dave have really only got an hour or so of steady play left in their stacks, they’ve got to do something, and hope Mad Turk is kept away from their table.

Snoopy is seriously short stacked, when asked how he is doing the response is a philosophical “Rubbish”, with 14,000 chips who can argue. Daiva claimed he got some lucky cards earlier when he built up a decent stack, maybe she was right.

10:30pm

70 players left, at this rate there will be no need for a Day 2! Good job its bacon sandwich time and we have a 30 minute break.

Dave’s happy with his 25k chips and the arrival of Yucel Emingolu to his table, he sees it as a great opportunity to win some chips from such a “crazy player”.

A quick look around the tables seems to show Yucel is still chip leader with approximately 130,000 chips, Ali on table 5 sits with approximately 70,000. Our man Ken is on 30,000 along with Snoopy. Dave and I spend 20 minutes of his break trying to outdo each other with tales of Las Vegas and who can play poker for the longest, he wins with some ridiculous story of 36 hours playing a cash game in Wynn, beating my raise of a Bally’s 28 hour session story. I reckon he was bluffing, but we’ll never know.

11:30pm

65 Players left

Dave’s gone. Get the violins out, here comes Dave’s bad beat story. He basically gets involved with a re-raise situation, holding pocket 8s, with an 8 on the flop. He knows Cheryl has got Aces, he goes All In, she calls him, and hits her Ace on the River. Dave’s not too bothered, he’s off home. Cheryl seems embarrassed by her win, I say good luck to her. So yet again Waldorf1 is on the hunt for a new focus, at least Ken Clark is holding his own with approximately 42k chips. I am not picking another focus tonight, it will only bring them bad luck.

11:45pm

59 players left

Bonnie and Jason who run the card room relay amusing stories of poker incidents and rule challenges and how they diplomatically deal with it, they certainly know their stuff as I try and second guess the rulings only to get most of them wrong, just goes to show the importance of employing skilled and dedicated professionals, not numpties like me.

12:06am

52 players left

It now appears to be S McCuaig and the Mad Turk who are vying for the chip lead, with approximately 130k each. Cheryl is sat with 90k chips and is probably top 5, so much for being embarrassed about her river Ace. Johnny “The Grinder” Hopkins is sat on Mickey Wernick’s table, and is going to need to do some serious grinding, he’s on 8000 chips, and no, I didn’t miss a zero. He’s probably out by the time I have written this bit up.

1am

The end of Day 1.

50 players left are here is the chip count.

Name	Count	Table
David Yang	125825	2
Nicky Evans	115600	2
Tom McCready	100500	1
Koh Chin	99075	1
Tom Cunningham	87975	3
Ken Clark	81000	3
Yucel Emingolu	79725	2
Adrian Lambe	79150	4
Cheryl Wood	72825	2
John Scott	72250	1
Mike Bowler	68100	5
Dave Young	64400	5
Jon Kalmar	63500	3
Dave Collins	63000	5
Wayne Penford	57600	4
H Frew	56900	1
Paul Butfield	53575	2
Donovan Ross	52125	1
Stuart Rutter	50875	4
Sally Smerdon	49375	5
James Egarr	48325	4
G Stewart	43750	1
Vic Rooney	43050	3
Z Aslam	40100	1
Robin Lea	37250	5
Paul Sahl	34650	4
Michelle Bricknell	29700	4
Johan Sundell	27200	3
Hieu Tran	25800	2
Ifitakhar Ali	25000	5
Jeff Bolding	24700	5
Nikki Short	23900	5
Adam Goulding	23525	1
Mickey Wernick	23275	2
Hugh Parker	22050	5
Andrew Hadden	21950	3
John Hopkins	21800	3
James Browning	19675	2
David Clarke	17800	3
Stephen Laker	17550	2
Paul Bell	17275	3
Michael Hynes	17050	4
Marvin Lee	14375	1
Don Harris	14200	5
Michael Paduano	11950	4
Glen Altham	10500	2
Mike Cummings	9975	4
Ansar Ali	9300	4
Ray Grange	8000	1