Over a month ago I won a 5 euro satellite, which got me a seat to the Super 50 Deepstack at DTD. However as the date clashed with the England World Cup game they cancelled it and entered me for the one dated 17th July instead.
The Super 50 is a great idea and has been successful for DTD. It offers the chance to small buy in, recreational, players to get the feel of playing a bigger event for a relatively small amount. At just £50+6 most casual players can afford/justify playing an event like this once a month.
On the 15th July I posted about how well the new £50 buy-in, £5,000 guaranteed tourney has been at the G Coventry. It remains to be seen whether or not it will sustain itself as a weekly event.
Anyway an impressive 257 runners rocked up to DTD for the 3.00pm start, creating a terrific prize pool of £12,850. (Just under £4k to the winner) Now I love the early levels of these events, as I always seem (coolers apart) to do really well in these events accumulating lots of chips and staying ahead of the chip average. This is mainly because the average player in these events play very nitty at the early levels. A raise is almost guaranteed to be a pocket pair or AK and a limp is suited connectors or maybe a raggy Ace. You sometimes get players who raise a lot more often but give away info with their bet sizing, and of course if your lucky you get a whale who is in every hand.
Don’t get me wrong there are some very good players in the field as well, but they are few and far between. Julian Thew has played it, and players like Steve Holden, Colin Young etc play it also.
Saturdays game went the same way as every other time I’ve played a Super 50. I get ahead of the game at the lower levels when I feel I have a small edge over the average player in these fields playing the streets. However this advantage doesn’t help when I run bad when the tourney turns into shove/fold mode later on.
Sadly as usual after the 2nd break the blinds are 400/800/100 and all the people I’ve taken chips off in the early levels are down to 6-8k and are not now looking to see flops. When the game gets like this any edge I may have had is out the window. An awful lot of the players from 7.15 onwards start to look at the evening comp, which starts at 8.00pm, and think I may as well start shoving and either double or bust.
I basically lost 3 races a 40/60 and finally when I shove pre-flop with AA run into JK suited and I’m out.
I’m cheesed off as usual and decide not to play the evening comp at DTD but drive back nearer home and go to the Broadway Casino, in Birmingham, which is my poker home from home. There are several reasons why I prefer the Broadway, one of which is it has been kind to me over the years and I’m ITM at just over 30% there.
I feel that the way I’m running at the moment I won’t do too well their either but at least I can have a drink and chat with friends whilst there.
I arrive late and go in as an alternate. It’s a Double Chance freeze-out but I opt to take the 2 x 3,000 chips upfront. This is usually +EV as there is a lot of dead money at the early levels.
Now apparently it’s 220/1 to get dealt Aces and as I sit down I’m in the BB and get pocket Aces 1st hand. It’s still 25/50 and I get an early position limper (a guy called Max who is granite) and a mid postion raise to 250. Folded to me I make it 650, but before Max can act the other guy shoves all his chips in out of turn. So Max folds (8,8) and I call.
Me AA v J,Qo flop comes Q,8,6, turn 5, river Q. So I’m down to 2,250 straight away. I take it surprisingly well and just carry on. I make a great come back and get to the break (end of level 3) with 10,000 (Av 7.5k) helped in no small way by limping with 44 into a 5 way pot and flopping a set and turning quads!
I also get very lucky with Ac,8c in the BB, blinds 50/100, I get raised by K,K to 300 so I call. The board comes Kc, 8d, 5c, he makes what looks like a weak cbet of 400, so thinking my 8’s are good I raise it to 1,100 and he ships in. I call and river the flush. Not so sure I like my call, but enough people play bad against me and win so why shouldn’t I do it occassionally? To be fair my opponent disguised the strenth of his hand pretty well. (Perhaps too well)
Sadly my luck didn’t last too long, when the game got to 800/1600/100 I get dealt AA again. This time losing to 66 AIPF.
I know the odds of getting dealt Aces, but not the odds of losing with them three times in a row versus one opponent. After running bad at DTD and then losing with Aces a further twice at Broadway I decided I’d enjoyed about as much tournament poker as I could stand for one day. So I decided to head home.
