League Winner AMRN!!!

Well the final leg of our short league played out this evening with a disappointing 4 players - more were in with a chance of winning the league, had more players turned up, but with the low turnout it was either going to be AMRN or me - if I won and he went first. He played his usual careful game and waited till I bust before he played a hand (Editors privilege, you know, lying).

After losing a chunk to StevenJH when I represented the nut straight which he was actually holding, I had to do a bit of grinding to get back into contention but in the absence of sexyfilmer, I was going to have to run into someone else and eventually succumbed to AP1988. He made the call when I shoved a low flop, apparently thinking I would have shoved pre with a pair and that his AQ was good. Well, no I wouldnt, necessarily, and yes it was. wp sir.

The league winner loosened up to concentrate on his iPOPS game and was next to go, again hammered by ap1988, and StevenJH, no slouch at heads up, came a cropper with pair versus pair, leaving ap1988 to win tonights match an finish second in the league, despite all his bad beats in the early games.

AMRN takes the £336 seat at Dusk Till Dawn and will probably play that in January. Well done to all who took part and if everybody wants to have another league starting in January I will arrange to set something up but we need to get more people playing, pick a night that suits everyone, a decide the level of buy in. We can discuss that another time bit for now here are tonight's results and final table, and a picture of our League winner below.

Well played AMRN77...
I did enjoy playing this league ... Well done to everyone for making it fun,it was played in a pleasant manner and tbh the amount of bad beats that happen there was no unpleasant remarks made(except me calling my son a luckbox) ..
Thank you Ascot for doing the league and sorting out all the extras you did great...
btw i will be playing another if it happens and i hope theres a few more players involved...

cheers StevenJH

Thanks very much for setting this up Dave - much appreciated by all who played (I'm sure), even if the player volume was very low this time round.

If we do get another one going, and I really hope we do, lets have at least a month's notice so we can canvass new players. There were a number of other BCPC players that would have played, but they didn't really find out about it until week two, and nobody wanted to join a league when they were at a points disadvantage before they started. For the next round, perhaps declare that only a player's best 4 results count? That way, people can still join late....

As for timing and buy in - personally speaking, Monday is perfect, as is the buy in.

Lastly, Dave - any chance of a MPF shirt to wear when I play at DTD please? (Size XL)

Glad you both enjoyed it.

Agree with Steve, the league was set up in too much of a hurry, and with the intention of trying to squeeze it in before the December Deepstack at DTD, but a longer league with the players best "n" results counting is the definitely an improvement.

Will take comments from the rest about the buyin - €5 or €10 guys?

Shirt for DTD - no problem - we will arrange a handover before your game or I can post it. I still have prizes to get to sexyfilmer, boingblitz and ap1988 too, I havent forgotten!

Have told Redbet you are aiming for January and am waiting to hear back from them.

Ascot wrote:Will take comments from the rest about the buyin - €5 or €10 guys?

Either buyin OK with me, but can you arrange it so that my big hands hold up, please ?

By the way, anyone who has recently been following another forum based in the North-West will have seen their new concept of a forum contest played out live by piggy-backing onto existing live tourneys. An interesting notion, and maybe one that we could look at for the Midlands in the future, if we had some members who were interested.

Event update: Couldn't make the DTD Deeptstack in December as was already playing in Manchester that weekend. DTD then conspired against me for January by bumping the buy in from 336 to 560, however with a little help from friends, I've stumped up the difference, and will playing day 1b tomorrow (Sat 7th).

Will post back on here with a trip report after the event (if I do any good..... if not so good, I'll just crawl under a rock and hide.)

Take it down Steve, GL mate

Trip report is on my blog - CLICK HERE, but also pasted below.

In the midst of 2011, Dave Allan created a great new poker community for Midland based poker players - The Midland Poker Forum was born, and as part of the promotion to get the site off the ground, and in conjunction with new sponsors RedBet poker, he created a short league for all forumites, the prize for which was a £336 seat in the Dusk Till Dawn monthly DeepStack event. Despite not actually winning single round, my consistent second and third places earned enough points to win the league and the £336 seat.

Now, the seat was supposed to be played in December but I was otherwise engaged in Manchester with APAT, so pushed for entry to the January event instead..... but forces conspired against me when DTD upped the buyin for the January event to £560, and my meagre bankroll meant the uplift of £224 was beyond me. I posted on Facebook to see if I could sell some shares to raise the difference - didn't really expect much positive response, and was gobsmacked when I managed to sell 30% within 5 minutes of posting! Huge thanks and gratitude to my stakers for their confidence!

So, off to DTD on 7th Jan.

The day started with the strangest possible moment which almost felt like an omen. On arrival at DTD I couldn't find anyone I knew to pass the time with, so went for the big screen to watch the Wolves v Bham cup game. I perched against a seat by one of the poker tables, and watched the pretty poor game wishing for something better on TV. The seat draw was made, but not yet posted on the screens, however the TD was distributing papers to each tournament table with the draw for each table so the dealers would be able to check they had the right players in the right seat. I happened to glance at the sheet for the table I was on and by some sheer fluke spotted my name.... now for the weird but, I was drawn in seat 5.... and that just happened to be the seat I was perched on to watch the footy! So out of 282 entries and 282 seats, I had happened to sit on the seat that would become mine for the rest of the day. Surely an omen of sorts.

I knew nobody at my table by the names on the sheet, although I thought I recognised the name in seat 1 from somewhere - Anthony Kendall - but couldn't recall a face. Of course when Tikay turned up, the connection was made. Funny how we can know someone by their nickname, but fail to recognise the full version of their real name. I've spoken with Tikay a few times, and he's a proper gent - spending several hours playing poker with him was a privilege... what a nice guy, and huge fun at the table! It was a bit of a bonus that it would eventually be me that took him out

The tourney started with a monstrous 30,000 stack - bigger than I've ever started with before. For four levels I hardly played a hand in anger - there were many limps pre followed by folds when missed the flop, and I shed a few chips and cultured a nice weak/passive image. By level 5 and the antes, I had pretty much figured the table out, and knew I had the ideal seat - the two fish at the table were seat 2 and seat 3, and I had position in seat 5. By the end of level 6 I had almost doubled my starting stack without ever reaching showdown - mostly by 3 or 4 betting pre.

By the end of level 9, I was double the average, biggest stack on the table, and generally crushing! I had never played this well in a live tourney before, and almost felt that I could see everyone's cards face up. At this point I had only been to showdown once with a top two pair hand that I checked back in position after a scary river card hit - to be shown that the other guy had called me pre, flop, and turn, with an underpair to the board and no draws. Easy money!

There was a flurry of small stack bustouts and four new players with biggish stacks arrived - I failed to switch gears here, and assumed that my uber-aggressive game could continue to get through, and before I knew it, my 100k was down to 70k, and I was folding pre to a 5 bet, only for the guy to flash a 3. Time to tighten up and re-evaluate.

Hand of note for the day came in level 11. I min-raised in mid position with 66, and Tikay called in the BB. Flop 456 (two clubs) - about as wet as it could be, and could easily have smashed into the BB's hand. Tikay had around 28k behind to my 70k. Rather than getting fruity and allowing the board to get any wetter, I bet almost full pot - around 9k. Tikay flat called! Turn was a 2 - now any 3 wins. Tikay checked - I shoved, he called, and showed 44 from a slow played smaller set - unlucky.

End of level 12, and I'm back to around 88k - the average was 82k, and if I didn't play another hand I would would finish the day near average stack... I was set fair to hit day two with at least 30 to 40 big blinds.

We had a 5 minute break before the last level and I went outside for a breath of air, and to ring Katharine to say goodnight. I also needed a pee rather desperately. Back in the cardroom and heading for the loo, but there was only 20 seconds left of the break and I was in the small blind first hand - better to play the hand, then go for a wee after.

The table folds round to me and I find AKs. Now, the guy on my left has a similar stack, and has played in the true fashion of an old school player - always open-raising 3.5x, yet folding to any resistance, and always squeezing from the BB in a limped pot. Three times today I had limped in the SB, and he had raised big from the BB forcing me to fold. Also three times today, I had open-raised from the SB and he had folded. So, in this AKs spot, I figured the best action was to limp to induce, and sure as eggs is eggs, he obliged. With a bet of 8k on top of the 2.4k blind, there was a total of 15.5k in the middle and I had 85k behind. I didn't want to be playing the hand out of position post flop with a hugely bloated pot so elected to shove the lot here, and take down the 18% increase to my stack. I, and the rest of the table, were abso-gobsmacked when he snap called the 35x shove with KJo. Naturally the flop was QT9 and I was out. I congratulated him on his expert play, and used a few expletives that I should probably have saved for other circumstances. I loved his call before the flop was dealt - just have to hang on to that thought.

All in all, I have never played better. I stayed away from usual distractions - alcohol and iPod - and found a new zone. I didn't lose a single hand at showdown until the end, I won several hands that I knew I had no right to win but was able to make the right plays at the right time, and I made two significant and correct read-based laydowns preflop (JJ and QQ), both to single raises.

I can't wait til next week for my next live venture, back at DTD for the Grand Prix (£100k gtd prize pool, and I bagged my £60 in a €2 satellite!)

Sorry to those that staked me - I was in a great spot to pay something back, and feel pretty bad about the outcome.... however I couldn't and wouldn't play anything differently.

Thanks to Dave Allan and the MPF for the opportunity - here's hoping there is another promotion soon

Great write up Steve, but next time just go for that pee, eh?

It`s a frustrating game sometimes. Well played.

to cap it all, the guy that donked with KJo and got lucky went on to finish second for £45,000.

Not a huge surprise, I've lost count of the times I've been felted by idiots with Kojak, online and live it makes no difference. The donks nuts, I call them.

Just be glad he didn't say "I'm behind, but I call ......".

Unlucky AMRN, even when you are in the zone, it only takes one hand to f@&k you up.

I feel your pain.


(good write up btw)