Christina v The Ricoh Arena Part II (Taking on the Goliath)

I’d got away with a few bluffs, as well as hitting a couple of hands, but hadn’t won many chips. In fact, I looked down at around half my starting stack, not quite sure where they’d gone – over-confidence had played its part, I think. There was one young lad at the table who I couldn’t quite work out. He had checked back the top full house, which I found nothing less than extraordinary, but then I’d seen him re-raising me with second pair! I wondered if this could be some kind of genuine hustler, which you don’t expect to see much in poker, because there can’t be many occasions that it’ll work to deliberately play badly and pretend to be a poor player; starting with a depleted stack is not often going to work out.

Well anyway, I was in a hand with 2 pair, jacks and 3s (I think it had been called round to me in the big blind, hence coming along with jack/3 off-suit), but the flop was all clubs. I think I had checked, the young lad had checked, someone had bet relatively big, so I then raised him. The young lad then went all-in. I now had only around 9000 chips behind (the starting stack is 25,000). I suppose it was probably pretty obvious that he had the flush, but folding didn’t seem too wise, as 9000 would not be a lot to play with. I stood up and asked quite noisily a number of times if he had it, which he denied, asking what I had. I think a few people at neighbouring tables found this quite funny. My mind tricked itself into thinking (blind optimism) that he might have the jack with an ace of clubs, putting me ahead at this stage. I also knew of course, that even if he did have a flush, I had a couple of chances, with the turn and river still to come, of improving to a full house and winning the hand that way. I finally made the call. Really quite a bad call on reflection, of course he showed the queen high flush, I did not improve, and I was out again! On just Level 2!

Well, no choice really but to head back to the hotel. Crissy was still in bed! She got up, and we went into town for a look around – we went to the cathedral, and bought some chicken and chips. It got to 5 o’ clock. I had put myself on the alternates list of the Goliath – this is a list so that people can enter, either rebuying or for the first time, after others have gone out, due to it been sold out – and in fact I realised that my name my well have come up by now. I rang the casino and was told my name had already been called out, but if I was quick, I could still enter again.

I made it to the casino with the tournament on around Level 8. It was costing me a bit of money, but at least I was now halfway through to reaching Day 2! With the blinds a bit higher, and me obviously starting with a below average stack (a couple of hundred players had been eliminated by this stage), I was going to have to be careful. I put down a couple of mid-range hands which annoyingly flopped 2 pair (ironically of course, this was what I went out with earlier, but in both these cases, I think I would have won the hand). I was getting quite chatty with the bloke next to me who was from Bournemouth – where Christina is from – but before I’d asked him where from exactly, or anything like that, he was out.

He had been absolutely fuming at the break. He had hit the nut flush, but his opponent had turned over what he believed to be just 3 of a kind, when in fact, he’d had a full house, which both he and the dealer had apparently failed to notice! It had taken a “railer” (nearby observer), who of course, should not even have been there, let alone have anything to do with the play, to point out the correct hand, and this guy’s opponent’s hand was then fished out of the muck! A pretty horrendous way to lose a hand, I would say! So anyway, he was then out shortly after the break.

My exit hand at this table was quite frustrating. There was a player immediately to my left who I found pretty annoying. There was another guy at the table who had a faded UKIPT t-shirt, and the bloke to my left seemed to feel the need to give this guy a pathetic amount of respect. Perhaps he was famous – I didn’t quite recognise him – but it seemed pretty sad to me. I laughed when the guy to my left put down A/K to two all-ins which were both low pairs, and he would have won the hand. I put in a tiny little bluff bet on the river against him and another player, and won the hand with my 6 high, which might have annoyed him.

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